


The Last Tangerines

by R00bs_Teacup



Series: Tangerine 'verse [5]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Magic, Multi, Police Procedural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11053545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: There's a dead body, someone's messing with time, and things are about to implode in the Musketeers out-of-office life too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: this one got a bit into horror somehow, there is human eating and as normal for crime thingy a dead body, grief, time phinangling and confusion over reality, um... 
> 
> Title will change when I think of something to call this. 
> 
> This is WIP I've written it all but got to edit, I hate editing and have discovered posting it chapter by chapter encourages me to edit. Fun times.

The body is so fresh rigor’s hardly set in, but the smell is still overwhelming and Porthos reels back, covering his nose and mouth, stumbling into Athos. Athos grabs him and frowns, looking at the body then at Porthos with eyebrows raised. Porthos takes his hand away, wondering if it’s just him, but the smell makes him retch and he takes another step back. d’Artagnan’s already knelt, face puckered in a frown and he seems completely unaffected by the smell. 

 

“Porthos?” Athos asks, still holding his elbow firmly to steady him. 

 

“Died real recent,” Porthos mutters. “Can you feel that?”

 

“Yeah, there’s spellwork,” Athos says. 

 

“Can you do your resurrection bit?” d’Artagnan asks, looking up eagerly. “I definitely got zapped when I touched the jacket.”

 

“You shouldn’t touch the dead body,” Porthos says, muffled by his hand. 

 

“SoCO’s already got pics and gone over,” Aramis says, coming in. “Do your thing before it wears off, if you’re going to.”

 

Porthos nods and takes a tentative step forward, then steps back and undoes the bandana from around his hair putting it over his face instead. He doesn’t need to touch the body to get zapped, the smell is probably part of the charge, if he touches the body he should get plenty. He shoves himself forwards and falls to his knees, bumping into d’Artagnan, pushing his hand against the shoulder of the woman. He has to swallow hard to keep himself from retching even with the cloth. His bandana smells like the fabric softener Athos likes and slightly of Athos himself from when Porthos crashed last night, after a long day, with it still on and Athos had ended up sleeping on it. Porthos takes a deep breath and the awful smell overwhelms him, overwhelms the fabric softner and Athos, engulfing him along with a cacophony of noises, bright lights, shadows. He feels pain across his abdomen and then all sound goes, and then there’s a thick ache in his head, sharp stabbing behind his eyes. That  _ smell _ .

 

_ Laughter like bells, clear and childish. Coach wheels, thundering hooves, the roar and shift and rumble of a cheering crowd. Jostling bodies. Heat and dust. Porthos looks around and catches the flick of familiar hair, the feel of a hand that’s like the one under his. He swallows and breathes. This isn’t right, though. The clothes are old, way too old, and the city is odd; there’s a coach and horses, great feathered plumes, the dark glint of gold and glass and jewels. The crowd rises like a wave as the coach approaches and Porthos is swept forward. He’s not swept, he’s running, leaping onto the footboard of the coach, and falling, falling beneath the wheels, pain in his abdomen, sound going, his head splitting.  _

 

_ Porthos lets himself drift away, backing out of the body around him, staggering back into the street. There’s nothing to see, it’s all fading into the dust as the life leaks out of what brought him here. There’s a shadow though, as things disintegrate. Just a flicker in the corner of his eyes, a light shape like a man running, like the burst of brightness left when you close your eyes after staring too long at the sun. Porthos shakes water off his hands, freeing time a little, and searches through the disintegrating scene for the shape. It’s all going, though, little pieces and scraps barely holding together enough to keep him here. He brushes forwards and tugs the edges until the crowd reforms and searches. There. A flash. He turns with his eyes shut and holds out a hand to feel around it, looking for the spellwork that’s left this dent. It’s in the girl, though, not the bright shape. Porthos lets go of the spellwork and closes his hand around the shape instead. _

 

Porthos sits up, coughing, choking on the sharp smell, gagging and spitting. Someone drags him back and he slides on his knees, the hand of the girl falling away, the city of Paris falling away. He lets go his clenched fist and the smell lessens and fades. Porthos turns and yanks Athos down, burying his face in Athos’s shoulder, searching out the laundry detergent smell, Athos’s shower gel, his shampoo, the weird conditioner he says makes his hair super soft and smells like seaweed; it smells kind of muddy now, there’s no hint of the sea Porthos expects. He takes a deep breath anyway, trying to rid his nose of the foul taste of seventeenth century Parisian sewers. 

 

“So, what did you learn from that little escapade?” Aramis asks. “Also, how come d’Art touching a body is bad but you can spit on it?”

 

“Ever had a mouthful of sewage?” Porthos asks, voice coming out rough and hoarse. “You’d spit, too.”

 

“Gross,” d’Artagnan murmurs, still over by the body. “Oh, weird. Is the zap thingy fading for you guys? I can’t feel anything anymore.”

 

“Charge is gone,” Porthos confirms, clearing his throat a few times. “I need to shower, I can still smell that.”

 

“Yeah, shower later,” d’Artagnan says, voice high. “The charge has gone, sure, I think it’s taken a few things with it.”

 

“Like?” Porthos asks. 

 

“Her head,” Aramis says, strangled, horrified. 

 

“She definitely had a head before,” d’Artagnan agrees, scrambling away from the body. 

 

“Hey,” Athos murmurs, kneeling lower, wrapping an arm around Porthos’s back. “Porthos?”

 

“Mm?” Porthos mumbles 

 

“Porthos,” Athos says again, patting his cheek. 

 

Porthos sighs, but he sits up and lets Athos get a look at his eyes and attempts to be present and engaged and not just nap on Athos’s shoulder. Athos quirks his lips and pats his cheek again, gently and affectionately. Porthos smiles, then turns to take a look at the now-headless corpse. She really is headless, which explains why Porthos’s throat hurts so much, along with his head and stomach. 

 

“I think that was post-mortem,” Porthos says, touching his throat. “Didn’t quite feel it. I think she got her head bashed in, then removed.”

 

“What else did you get?” d’Artagnan asks eagerly. 

 

“Nothing,” Porthos says, scratching his head. “Was weird, way the wrong century and Paris instead of London and horses and coaches. She got run over by a coach and trampled by horses on the street in seventeenth century Paris. Also there was some bright thing that stank a lot.”

 

“Yeah, his death reading thing isn’t always useful,” Aramis says, dismissing it and crouching down to examine the body again. “Do you think SoCO noticed the missing head thing?”

 

“When it doesn’t work it’s because of other charges and old buildings and other deaths and shite,” Porthos snaps, irritated at being dismissed. He points at the body. “This was her, I recognised her.”

 

“Don’t be absurd,” Aramis snaps back, straightening again. “Can we let the ME takes this, please? And let’s go. This should be passed to someone else, there’s nothing interesting.”

 

“Except for seventeenth century Paris,” Porthos grumbles, but he can’t be bothered to fight Aramis’s assessment. 

 

Aramis is probably right, anyway. It’s just a body. Just a bit of magic around confusing things. One of the detectives can handle it with a SU consult, maybe from Samara or Milly. They traipse back out of the church and wave the ME back inside, piling into Athos’s car. d’Artagnan, as is usual, does the driving. Athos is banned from driving this month after he drove slowly slowly slowly to a crime scene but spotted Sylvie on their way and suddenly gunned it, shooting them through red lights and nearly getting them all squished. Porthos is pretty much always banned, if d’Artagnan’s around to drive, and Aramis refuses to drive in London. They’d been on their way to lunch when the call came in asking for an SU consult at the scene and d’Artagnan heads back on route. 

 

“Ath,” Porthos whispers. They’re in the back, Aramis and d’Artagnan bickering idly in the front about whether it was worth bringing the car. They’ve got a half day and were heading out of the city, so definitely worth it, but Aramis is putting up a lively defense of trains. “Time’s wibbling.”

 

“Yeah?” Athos whispers back, facing stolidly forward and staring out the front windscreen. “You taste different.”

 

“Taste?” Porthos says. “Ew.”

 

“Shut up,” Athos says. “Come back.”

 

“I am back,” Porthos says. 

 

“What?” Athos says, opening the window. “Back where? What are you talking about, Porthos?”

 

“Can you shut that?” Porthos says. “It smells funny out there.”

 

Athos wraps a hand urgently around his wrist and squeezes, harder and harder until it hurts, fingers digging in between the veins, nails sharp and biting. He grins and it stretches over his face wider and wider, splitting it, teeth red from blood. He laughs and suddenly there’s a sharp smack and the car’s sailing through the air, Aramis yelling, and d’Artagnan’s head flies past Porthos’s shoulder, the smell of Paris again overwhelming him, Athos laughing and laughing, fingers like a vice. Porthos struggles but it’s Athos, he can’t do anything to Athos. The car hits and crumples around him and he lies there, gazing at Athos, into his red eyes, blood dripping into Porthos’s mouth. Aramis yells again and wrenches himself through, half his body squashed between the seats. He has his knife in his hand and he jabs at Athos’s fingers, cutting and slicing until Athos snarls and scuttles, leaping on Aramis, teeth sinking into Aramis’s shoulder. 

 

“Porthos. Shh, shh. Aramis, it’s not working he’s not paying enough attention!”

 

There’s a burst of sunlight and Porthos turns on his side curling up away from Athos and Aramis fighting. His arms are free now but when he opens his eyes he’s face to face with d’Artagnan, eyes wide and dead, mouth open, nothing below the neck. Porthos rests a hand against d’Artagnan’s cheek and shuts his eyes again. His arms are free. He lets go of d’Artagnan, lets him drift away, lets the sounds of Aramis dying fade. And opens his eyes. 

 

“Oh thank god,” Athos says. He’s holding Porthos’s face, cradling his chin. “Hey, hey. I’ve got you, it’s just me. What’s the matter? It’s me.”

 

Porthos gets himself out of Athos’s hold and slides backwards as fast as he can, staring. He wraps his own hand around his arm where Athos’s was and it hurts. It’s bruised. He looks down and catches sight of the body as he does. There’s a head, there’s definitely a head. d’Artagnan’s following Porthos across the floor and he has a head too, his face is alive, full of concern and warmth and not the wide eyed fear. Aramis is knelt by the body but he’s looking at Porthos now, not the woman. Porthos looks around. They’re still in the church. 

 

“That wasn’t the future,” he croaks, reaching out and touching d’Artagnan’s cheek then letting his hand drop and knitting their fingers. “Hello Charlie.”

 

“Not my name,” d’Artagnan says, gently. “John.”

 

“Make it smell like the sea,” Porthos pleads. 

 

“I can’t do that,” d’Artagnan says. 

 

“You can you can. You’ve just forgotten,” Porthos says, pressing the shapes to him, reminding him. Porthos shoves when d’Artagnan ignores it, and the burst of sunshine is back, glinting off waves. “Make it smell!” 

 

“Alright, alright. Calm down,” d’Artagnan mutters. 

 

He disentangles his hand from Porthos’s and presses both palms to the ground, shutting his eyes, face twisting up in concentration. The stained glass around them wibbles and the sea and salt, water and air and freshness, bursts through with the sunlight, heating the church and flushing out the smell. Porthos breathes, relief crashing over him. 

 

“Porthos?” Athos says in a very small voice. Porthos turns away, not wanting to look, pressing his mouth to his shoulder to try not to cry. “Oh. Ok.”

 

Aramis straightens up and comes over, nudging d’Artagnan away which takes the sea and everything. Porthos tries to grab d’Artagnan back but only gets Aramis. Aramis makes a long gentle shushing noise and holds onto Porthos’s knees, crouching in front of him, blocking the room. He smiles and pushing the hair off Porthos’s face, nudging his cheek until he looks up and meets Aramis’s eyes. 

 

“Hi,” Aramis says. “What’s going on?”

 

“Someone’s fucking with time,” Porthos whispers, scared, gripping Aramis’s hands. “I dunno what’s real.”

 

“How do you tell usually?” Aramis asks.

 

“When he can’t find now,” Athos says, voice dull and flat, “he finds us. We’re here, though.”

 

“Where’s the present?” Porthos asks, needing an answer. 

 

“I don’t know,” Athos says. 

 

Porthos turns his head slowly, carefully, leaning forward, eyes shut. He presses his chin into Aramis’s shoulder, Aramis’s knees sharp and bony against him, shifting until he can clutch Aramis’s jumper. Then he opens his eyes and finds Athos. He’s sitting where he dragged Porthos to away from the body, cross legged. He looks limp, like a puppet with cut strings. He stares helplessly back at Porthos, eyes big and wet with tears. Porthos waits, and waits. Nothing happens. 

 

“Your hands,” he demands. Athos holds them out without asking for elucidation. Porthos examines them, he’s not sure what for. He’d had normal hands before, he’d smelt of Athos. But… no. No, he hadn’t. Mud. “Smell him, d’Artagnan. His sea was like mud.”

 

d’Artagnan does ask for elucidation but Porthos doesn’t give it, just waits. Eventually d’Artagnan huffs and gives up on getting answers, going over and giving Athos a few tentative sniffs. Then he sighs and does it properly. 

 

“Just the seaweed crap he keeps drowning his hair in,” d’Artagnan says.

 

Porthos lets go of Aramis and gets up, shuffling over to Athos, still suspicious. Athos submits docilely to an inspection and Porthos finds nothing but Athos. He wraps Athos’s fingers around his wrist and it’s definitely his finger marks. Porthos shudders and Athos’s grip turns gentle, his thumb finding the pulse at Porthos’s wrist and rubbing carefully. He looks up into Porthos’s face, grave and definitely himself. 

 

“I promised to protect you,” Athos says, for Porthos’s ears only. “Now you look at me like you’re afraid. I need to fix it.”

 

Porthos nods and reluctantly gives Athos permission for whatever he wants to do, reaching out and waiting for whatever butterflies and shapes Athos sends his way. It’s a whole storm of them, fluttering and whirling around him, encasing him, engulfing him, filling him up and overflowing everywhere. 

 

“He couldn’t do that,” Porthos whispers, putting his hand over Athos’s. “This is now, definitely. No one can do that except you and you are now.”

 

“There you are,” Athos says, smiling. “Good. How is your head?”

 

“Splitting,” Porthos says. “Can I lie down please?”

 

“Not yet. We’re still at the crime scene,” Athos says. “Can you drive us home, d’Artagnan?”

 

“No!” Porthos says, shaking his head as hard as he can. “No, no! John can’t drive, no. Not John. Never Johnny. Please.”

 

“I could drive,” Athos says, again not questioning it. 

 

“No,” Porthos says. “Don’t let go of me. I might go away again. You told me to come back. Don’t let me go again.”

 

“Aramis, then,” Athos says. “Aramis will drive us home.”

 

“Were we going to lunch?” Porthos asks. 

 

“No,” Athos says. “It’s five pm. We were finishing up for the day when this case came through.”

 

“It’s ours,” Porthos says. “Don’t let Aramis give it away. Make him drive us home.”

 

“I’m not driving you anywhere if you ask me like that,” Aramis says. Then he sighs and comes to pull Porthos up to his feet, holding his elbow and giving him a tired smile. “Come on though, you can apologize later, I suppose, and ask nicely then.”

 

Porthos’s headache turns into a migraine on the way home and when they get back he lies down on his own in a dark room and decides he’s never moving again. Not for love nor money. He’ll just lie here until he head falls off his shoulders. He nearly throws up thinking that but manages not to, instead clinging to the bed and thinking about Athos, earlier, trying to recreate it, the time that wasn’t. The smells the sights the feel of it all. Trying to connect it to the body, to them. To Athos. Athos must be sat outside the room in the hall because when Porthos thinks of him everything fills with butterflies again, as if Athos was just waiting for the invitation, and Porthos falls asleep with them gentle around him and dreams of their bright wings and their warmth, Athos’s warmth. 

 

*

 

“Her name is Thérèse Langston,” Aramis says, wandering into the office the next afternoon (the morning was lost to a strange and insistent case involving a child taken three times by the fairies), reading off a file, pulling out the photos and dropping them on Athos’s desk for d’Artagnan to add to their board. “She’s a student, nineteen, found by the vicar who can tell us exactly nothing he walked in, saw her, saw no one and nothing else, and scarpered. We’re lucky he called it in. There are no connections to France or Paris, we checked for you Porthos.”

 

“The church?” Athos asks, still buried in paperwork from this morning’s case. 

 

“She wasn’t religious at all,” Aramis says. “No connection. No family connection either. She was last seen alive as far as the canvas has found by her room-mate, yesterday morning. Time of death was, according to the ME, sometime between then and when we found her, super helpful. She thinks Porthos was probably right about it being really recent to the call and promises more after the autopsy. There’s some confusion about cause of death apparently, probably the spellwork. She was a hedgewitch but had no further training.”

 

“Probably the murderer’s magic,” Porthos says. His head still hurts and he’s quite grumpy today. “He of the weird time who whisks me about the place and eats people. We should definitely look into that.”

 

“We did,” Aramis says. “No connection to Paris. I’ve put in a request with the mundane murder team at Major Crimes, they should be sending us a couple of detectives over this afternoon. They can cover most of this case.”

 

“Time whisking human eating,” Porthos says stubbornly. “Our case.”

 

“Give over, it was a fluke, a dream. It’s hardly an accurate thing,” Aramis says, exasperated.

 

“Porthos can work with the murder team,” Athos says. “We’ll assist when you need otherwise we’ll cover other cases. This morning’s is complete, whenever you have time to add your report Porthos.”

 

Athos closes the file and puts a green elastic band around it before getting up and dropping it into Porthos’s intray, scooping up a bunch of folders left there by Supernatural Intelligence. He flicks through leaning against the front of the desk and drops three of them back, taking the other two over to his desk and adding a few post-its before handing both to Aramis. 

 

“Get this covered for SI, then head down to the Magis and see if Grit still wants you to help with that spellwork for the Carterton case. If not, there are three consults over at the non-magic side that need our attention. d’Artagnan, you and I will go out with the Ghostbusters, there are a couple of stubborn things that defy classification that they’re waiting our help with,” Athos says, digging out a thick file and passing it to d’Artagnan. “Get the research done this afternoon and we’ll head out tonight, there’s one I think midnight and moonlight will help with.”

 

d’Artagnan groans but accepts the folder. It’s the blue one that Athos uses to keep track of Ghostbusters’ requests. They just fill out a single sheet and Athos adds it to the binder and they get to them as and when, unless they’re marked urgent. d’Artagnan finds the next requests on their list and pulls out the forms. They’re thick with post-its, Athos and Porthos jamming their ideas on there as and when. d’Artagnan passes the folder back and starts two new files with the requests, filling out the sticker on the front before heading down to Serge and Marsac for books. Porthos remembers the request Athos thinks moonlight will help and knows he slipped a list of suggested reading in there. He himself is sure that moonlight is going to do nothing, but he has been wrong before, once or twice. 

 

“Lunch?” Athos suggests, getting up and coming over to Porthos’s desk again. “Invite Philippe, we can see if he knew Thérèse.”

 

Porthos looks at the files in his in-tray, at the thickening murder file, the board with Thérèse’s face smiling out at them, her SoC photos oddly bloodless. Athos did the informing the family last night and got the pictures of her alive. d’Artagnan’s filled in the info and included a box for Porthos’s time stuff. The heading says ‘Porthos’s time stuff’. 

 

“Might just go over the case,” Porthos says. “Meet the detectives.”

 

“It’s Adele and Elodie,” Athos says, smiling. “Lunch first. Come on, I’m hungry.”

 

Porthos sighs, but rings up Phillipe and arranges to meet in an hour. He does a bit of paperwork and gets around to one of the requests from SI. He drags d’Artagnan along on that one, taking him down to the river to meet Tinny. He only looks up Tinny once in a blue moon for SI, he doesn’t like Tinny she creeps him out, but this time he figures it’s a good cause and might be linked to their case this morning. SI have been on the search for a reason for a couple of recent Changeling cases that are repeats. The Fairies assure Aramis it’s not them, not anything official. Tinny will probably have an idea. They sit on the steps of the Thames and Porthos makes d’Artagnan take his shoes and socks off and put his feet in the water too. Not that they both need to but Porthos has to and if he has to he’s going to make d’Artagnan do it, too. 

 

“Is Tinny something to do with Water Peoples?” d’Artagnan asks, peering into the river, not seeming to care about the grimy water. 

 

“No,” Porthos says. 

 

Tinny comes quickly, it’s been a while since Porthos looked her up and she likes him. She comes out of the mud and brings with her the smell of thick silt and boat oil, and her hair is thick and lank with that same oil, her eyes rimming with it, it rests on her eyelids. She is of the pollution of the river and it’s not a contaminant to her but life. Porthos raises a hand in greeting and she comes up and kneels in the water, smiling at them, hands on each of their knees, her oil and mud sinking into their trousers and down their calves. d’Artagnan tries to school his face but still looks disgusted which makes Tinny laugh, a tinny tapping noise that she got her name from, a ringing jingling of empty tins against the side of the river. 

 

“Changelings, Fairies, lots of children going missing over and over,” Porthos says. Tinny likes to be paid before she gives her information and she just smiles at him, all her teeth yellow through design not sickness, breath muggy and rank. “Half and half like always.”

 

Porthos shows her his offering, flicking the coins over his knuckles and then vanishing them back into his pocket. Old copper coins, mostly worthless, picked up at markets, Porthos has a box full at the office for this kind of thing and today has a pocket full. Tinny shrugs and settles on the steps, water up around her waist, leaning into Porthos’s knees. 

 

“You could at least not bring the mud,” Porthos says, brushing a hand through her hair, that usually makes her talk. A little bit of affection. She’s old, older than Porthos had ever thought possible for such a being.

 

“I haven’t got the information you want, Vallon,” Tinny says, voice like a blunt tin opener on a rusty can. “I don’t keep track of the Sidhe, unless they’re messing with my oils and muck.”

 

“You keep track of everything,” Porthos counters. 

 

“Not the Sidhe, the Thames does that for me, lets me know when they get in a fuss-le,” Tinny says. “Fuss fuss. Kiddies, yes? Your beautiful friend must be sad, your beautiful grieving friend.”

 

“Aramis is busy, he’ll visit you some other time,” Porthos says. 

 

“A shame. He’s so often busy. Give Tinny some sunshine with those pretty coins, Bilbo, and I’ll tell you what you like,” Tinny says. “Not the Sidhe you want anyway.”

 

Porthos shrugs and gives one of the coins a kiss before passing it over. Tinny wraps her hands around it and smiles, face changing to bright beauty for a moment, like the sun on the oil in the puddle, deep colours like fire and surface sheen trembling through her a moment. Porthos kisses his knuckles and flicks the coins over, changing them to his other pocket. Tinny’s eyes watch. 

 

“Not the Sidhe, some priest, he’s been out and about, works for something… royal. I heard about your Theseus, Bilbo,” Tinny says, eyes sly. Porthos gives her his pocket of copper and nudges d’Artagnan to start taking notes. “Father Duval, Catholic priest, some kind of connection to a Sidhe prince, given guardianship of something millennia ago he’s a bit lost and confused. He’s a Wanderer, Bilbo. Take a bird with you when you go, keep you safe.”

 

“The Changelings?” Porthos asks. 

 

“Once he’s taken them the Sidhe prince hasn’t much choice. Duval’s mark is words and stories, that’s binding to the Sidhe,” Tinny says. “Any more for me?”

 

“No,” Porthos says. “Unless you’re telling me about Theseus.”

 

“Just heard about him, that’s all. Princes and Kings and lost things,” Tinny says. “Everything’s connected.”

 

She sinks away, dispersing into oil and mud. Porthos catches her naked body beneath the water, like an oil shadow, sinking down to the silts. He stands up and they head back to shower, using plenty of soap, d’Artganan complaining the whole way about oil on his notepad and on his clothes and on his skin. He and Athos take Philippe to lunch at the Laughing Parrot and manage to not talk about Thérèse for half an hour. Philpipe hasn’t heard of her, not, that is, until Athos mentions her surname.

 

“Langston? Yeah I know her, she’s part of a group that are trouble makers,” Philippe grumbles. “They keep asking for things!”

 

“Are these perfectly reasonable things like the gender neutral bathrooms the LGBT soc wanted, or unreasonable things like the soc who wanted to ban selfie sticks on campus?” Porthos asks. 

 

“I really wanted to go with the selfie-stick ban,” Philippe says glumly. “Probably reasonable things but nothing I have the money to actually do. Unless they do excessive fundraising and find me students I can’t start a whole new course focusing on the misreadings of history, and I can encourage women in the sciences and magics but I can’t make the whole university revolve around that.”

 

“Maybe we should look into her activity with this group,” Athos says. 

 

“Any connection with Paris?” Porthos asks, tearing his cake apart with his fork. He hasn’t really been listening much, he’s bored and distracted and Philippe’s getting on his nerves today. 

 

“Most of them are minoring in French,” Philippe says. “There’s a core group of five women, lead by Fleur Boudin, they call themselves the Revolutionists. You should probably send a woman to talk to them. Someone called Ninon Larroque works with you, doesn’t she? She seems to have something to do with them, they call her if they ever get arrested for protests or something.”

 

“Great,” Porthos says, sinking lower into his seat, gloomily stabbing his cake. 

 

“I have to get back to work,” Philippe says, finishing his coffee. “Thank you for treating me to lunch.”

 

“Oh, are we treating you?” Porthos says. “What a surprise.”

 

Philippe laughs and limps out with great drama and flare. Porthos stabs at his cake again and wonders what Louis and Feron’s father was like, to have such dramatic children. Athos is watching him, half amused half concerned. Amusement is winning out and he reaches over to lightly brush his fingers against Porthos’s cheek. 

 

“Let’s go meet the detectives,” Porthos says, pushing his cake away. Athos eyes it. “Fine. Finish the cake then go meet the detectives.”

 

“This is getting to you,” Athos says, around a mouthful of icing, pulling Porthos’s plate over and digging in. Porthos knew when he got the it he hadn’t really wanted the cake so he got the chocolate one Athos likes. 

 

“You think?” Porthos says. “I know Aramis thinks I’m a bit nuts but there is definitely something in this, ok?”

 

“I know,” Athos says.

 

“You think I’m right?”

 

“No idea who’s right but I know you think you’re right. Follow it up, see what you find. I’ll give you d’Artagnan when we’re doing with the Ghostbusters, for backup.”

 

“Thanks,” Porthos says. “Useful having a boyfriend for a boss.”

 

Athos doesn’t rise to the bitterness in Porthos’s voice, ignoring it. Or not noticing it - he’s pretty into the cake. Porthos takes a photo and idly sends it to Sylvie and gets a lol emoji back. Sylvie likes Athos a lot, she likes his silly side and has perfected the art of bringing it out, Porthos supposes that’s a good thing. He’s not jealous anyway, or hasn’t been the last few years. Wasn’t at the start. Probably isn’t now. He feels irritation at her though for some reason so her drops his phone on the table and lets his head rest on his arm, waiting for Athos to finish the cake. 

 

“You’re grouchy,” Athos says, on their way back to the station. 

 

“No shit,” Porthos says. 

 

“I’m an Empath, I notice these things,” Athos says. 

 

Sylvie’s texted him, then. He gets very silly when he’s chatting with her. Porthos sighs and shoves his hands into his pockets, not quite in the mood. Athos gives his biceps a squeeze but doesn’t change his behaviour, making jokes the whole way up to their office. Luckily Elodie and Adele are sat chatting with d’Artagnan, the distraction means Porthos doesn’t do something regrettable in his irritation. He grabs the board and drags it out, expecting the other two to follow. There’s an empty room along the corridor he sets them up in and talks them through things, telling them what they’ve got so far, adding what Philippe said to the board and scribbling notes for a report to add later. 

 

“All of it needs entering on the system, I might get someone to do that for us. Anne will give us the funds if I can persuade her my ‘time stuff’ is relevant,” Porthos says. 

 

“Adele can do it,” Elodie says, ankle up on her knee, not looking up from the copy of the file she’s got. “Is there any way to connect it? Evidence? Would be it be possible to just ignore that aspect and focus on it as a plain murder case?”

 

Porthos doesn’t reply, not sure he can without getting cross. Elodie glances up at him and catches his expression, shrugs, and goes back to perusing the file. Adele’s already typing, copying things up onto her laptop, hopefully starting a file on the system. Porthos feels a flood of helplessness and sits heavily on one of the tables, glaring at the board, at d’Artagnan’s irritating heading, at the rest of the case. He doesn’t have a good connection to link what he saw and felt and experienced to this case. All he has is the colour of Thérèse’s hair, the feel of her hand as his and under his. It’s hardly enough. The smell is firmer but the church was old, old enough to have that smell itself. 

 

Porthos rests his head in his hands, it’s starting up its pounding again and his eyes ache. He presses the heel of his hand into his eye and rubs, light sparking. He catches the smell suddenly, sharp and acrid, like shit and bodies and decay, and the man running in the corner of his eyes, the sound of laughter. He shakes his head, shakes the smells and sounds off, finding his water. Elodie and Adele have barely reacted, they’re still sat where he left them. Porthos sits on the floor this time, against the wall, and settles in to think. Over the next week he leaves Adele and Elodie to follow up most of the leads, generating and fulfilling actions on the system. He interviews the other French undergrads in the Revolutionists, slogs through tome after tome on the Paris sewer system, talks to Treville about the seventeenth century, and tries to persuade Anne to let him visit Paris. She says no. He finds out that some of the French studies students went to Paris last year, but none of the Revolutionists had. He talks to Ninon but she just encourages and backs up the women who, in her words, ‘are fighting for a better world’. She knows nothing about Paris. He plugs all the information he gathers into the system, but it comes to nothing much. On Friday Porthos generates an action to talk to Thérèse’s father about Paris and gets a talking to by Elodie about being sensitive. 

 

“I’m not gonna barge in there and disturb the family. I’m following up on a solid lead,” Porthos snaps back, frustrated that no one is taking him seriously on this. “I dunno what you guys think happens when I do that, when I touch the body and try and find out where it was and what it did and who was in it, but it isn’t hit and miss. It’s not always accurate but I can tell when it’s not and besides I know about time. This is weird and fucked up and there’s something going on, it’s not good. I need to find out what it is.”

 

“Fine. Talk to him. But I’m coming with you and if I say so you stop your questions and leave,” Elodie says. “This is my case and I like Sebastian Langston.”

 

“Fine,” Porthos says, humiliated and angry but unable to let any of it out, he has what he wanted. 

 

They get the tube out to Stratford and walk twenty minutes to a small residential road, heading for a semi-detached three story right on the street. Elodie rings the bell and talks Porthos through things yet again, in an angry whisper. The door is opened by a uniformed officer, the family liaison officer. Porthos grits his teeth and tries not to be humiliated by how little they’re trusting him. He’s lead into the livingroom flanked by the two women. There’s a man in his fifties sitting in an armchair by the window who looks around slowly, dull eyes flicking over Elodie and the liasson and resting on Porthos. His head tilts a little and Porthos goes over to sit on the window sill in the man’s line of sight, eyes running over the room taking things in. There are photographs of Thérèse everywhere, along with frame LP covers, a record player and sophisticated speakers in the corner. Porthos recognises old blues, Nina Simone, Muddy Waters, Lead Belly. The LP covers are signed. Porthos brings his attention back to Thérèse’s father and smiles. 

 

“I’m Porthos,” he says, holding out his hand. It’s taken in a loose grip and the man gives him a helpless look so Porthos gives him a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of hope, just a tiny tiny spark, finding the shape of it in him and warming it with a gentle touch, thumb resting on the man’s hand a moment. “I have a few questions that might seem a bit odd.”

 

“You’re from the SU. My husband worked with them, he was an Empath,” he says. “I’m divorced now of course. I’m Sebastian, Sebastian Langston.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Porthos says, smile warming. “You did a lot for the black civil rights movement here, in the seventies.”

 

“I did my bit,” Sebastian says. “You want to talk to me about my daughter not about my history.”

 

“I do but I just wanted to say I remember,” Porthos says. “Ok. I want to know about Paris, and I do actually want to know about history though not necessarily your own.”

 

Porthos watches Sebastian carefully but there’s no reaction to Paris and his heart sinks. This is going to be yet another dead end. 

 

“Thérèse’s mother was French,” Sebastian says, attention drifting. “She was beautiful. Not Parisian, though. She was from Marseilles.”

 

“Is she why Thérèse is studying French?” Porthos asks. 

 

“Maybe, I don’t know. Tee didn’t talk to me much, recently. She was twenty… you know what they’re like at that age… only twenty short years.”

 

“I’m so sorry, sir,” Porthos murmurs, closing his eyes and letting the man’s grief wash over him, feeling it between his fingers, rough against his palm. “I am so very, very sorry for the loss. Can you tell me if Thérèse was interested in history, particularly the seventeenth century?”

 

“Not that I know. My husband had a history degree but only undergrad and he and Thérèse weren’t close. It was a short marriage. I don’t regret it but it was never going to last and I don’t think Tee approved.”

 

“Did Thérèse ever go to Paris? Or Marseilles?” Porthos asks. 

 

“Not Marseilles. Her mother took her to Paris when she was small, I think she was three or four. They had a weekend there, before Kingsely died,” Sebastian says, eyes filling with tears. Porthos sees him struggling to control them and gives the tiny spark of hope in him another gentle, careful brush. “Oh. You’re Bright.”

 

“Sorry,” Porthos says, grimacing. 

 

“I recognise it. I knew a man, once. Hubert. He was a good man. In the seventies, he showed up over and over. A good man,” Sebastian says, rambling, eyes glazing. Porthos frowns, hesitating, then swallows hard and has to stop himself from leaping up. 

 

“Thank you sir,” Porthos says. “You’ve been very helpful. I won’t ask you more questions but may I come sit with you again tomorrow?”

 

“Yes, I would like that,” Sebastian says. 

 

“Can I have a look at her room? She did have a room here?” Porthos asks. 

 

“Yes, she lived here, she wanted to save money on rent and borrow less money,” Sebastian says. “Go ahead, I can’t go in there, Riley will show you.”

 

The family liaison gets up and they all troop out and through the house, the neat hallway also covered in photo frames, the kitchen a bit of a mess (Riley's  wince suggests that’s on her not on Sebastian), out to a conservatory that’s been adapted for a bedroom. It’s warm and the walls are yellow, there are books filling three sets of shelves, a desk, a space where a laptop had sat. Porthos looks around and then runs his fingers over things, idly notes the book titles and subjects, searching, searching. There’s no spell, no odd running man in the corner of his eye, no Paris. The only thing that marks this room as in any way out of the ordinary is a mounted image of Eugene Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”, a banner stuck underneath with the legend  _ Liberté égalité et la solidarité féminine _ scrawled across it. 

 

“It’s entirely the wrong century,” Elodie says from the doorway, seeing Porthos examine it. 

 

Porthos shrugs and moves on. There’s nothing here, though, and he’s got other things to do - his urge to rush off is returning as the room reveals nothing to him and he gives in to it, this time. He leaves Elodie and heads for Sylvie’s school, texting Athos to tell him he’s following up a lead. 

 

*

“Let me see if I understand this,” Aramis says. “Sylvie’s father lived in Paris for a while, then in London where he knew Sebastian Langston, who’s child is now dead. This is your only connection to Paris except a short trip with her mother seventeen years ago.”

 

Porthos rubs at his face, then rubs harder, then presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. This headache has been stubborn. After talking to Sylvie yesterday he’d cut the work day short and gone home to sleep, waking when Athos got back later and woke him to ask him about dinner but sleeping again, in too much pain to eat anything. Now it’s the afternoon and the headache is creeping up on him again. He rubs at his eyes and catches a glimpse of the little running man, a waft of the smell, a tiny gust of laughter. It’s been happening on and off since he saw Sebastian yesterday and he’s started to just ignore it. Athos comes in with cake and coffee, Porthos has been able to feel him around the station for the past twenty minutes but it’s a relief for him to be close now, standing between Porthos and Aramis. Porthos doesn’t raise his head and Athos comes to put his purchases on Porthos’s desk, waiting. Porthos doesn’t look up and Athos sighs and perches on the desk, thigh against Porthos’s side, and cradles his cheek, thumb against his temple. 

 

“Go home,” Athos murmurs. “Get some more rest, see if that helps, I’ll make an appointment with Lemay if it doesn’t.”

 

“I’m fine, it’s just a headache,” Porthos says. “I have work to do, stuff to follow up.”

 

“No you don’t,” Aramis says quietly. “Sorry, Porthos. I talked to Anne, she’s taken you off the case.”

 

“What?” Athos says, tugging his hand away from Porthos’s skin. It sticks, strings of emotion falling to Porthos’s shoulder, the tingle of Athos’s fingers still against his cheek. “You did  _ what _ ?”

 

“You were putting resources into something there’s no proof about. We have a case, the children, Tinny’s intelligence, father Duval,” Aramis says. “SI sent it back, it’s too intricate for them and too much knitted up with the Fairies.”

 

“I know, I assigned it to you and d’Artagnan,” Athos says. “That’s plenty of resources to something Porthos has all but solved for you.”

 

Aramis doesn’t reply, just gathers his files and leaves, heading down to Grit to get some work done somewhere else. Athos returns his hand to Porthos’s cheek. 

 

“Sorry,” Athos says. “Nothing I can do about that. The stupid git.”

 

“Why’d he do that?” Porthos asks. 

 

“Lots of things are going on in his head right now,” Athos says. “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with it. Take a few days off, you can work on this from home if you like. Get some rest, see Lemay.”

 

“Sylvie’s father knew Thérèse’s father,” Porthos says. “This… whatever he is, this thing in my head, he looked like you.”

 

“Yeah,” Athos says, grimly. “I noticed that.”

 

Porthos takes a deep breath then lets it out again, leaning into Athos’s touch. He really, really wants this headache to go away so his mind will clear. He wants to go down to the morgue to talk to the ME, to see Thérèse’s body again. He wants to talk to Sylvie about her father, to Sebastian about Thérèse. He wants to know where Paris comes into it. 

 

“I’m going to go sit with Sebastian for a while, listen to him talk about his daughter, then I’m going to visit the morgue and see what the ME has to say,” Porthos says.

 

“I can help you there,” Athos says, smiling. “Adele sent me a copy of the autopsy report for you to look over.”

 

Porthos perks up at potentially having another ally in this and he and Athos scrutinize the report together, spreading it over Porthos’s desk, Athos kneading the back of Porthos’s neck to help ease the headache. The ME found evidence of a blow to the head, and marks that as probably cause of death. There was also internal abdominal bleeding though no outward physical signs of bruising or trauma. Her ankle and femur were broken premortem, though again there is no physical signs of how that happened, no outward bruises, just broken bones. There are various other injuries listed and then a note from the ME saying ‘injuries consistent with trampling by a large animal, possibly run over by something heavy, inconsistent outward signs of internal injuries’.

 

“She got run over by a carriage,” Adele says, from the doorway, making them both start. She grins and saunters in looking pleased with herself, perching on Athos’s desk. “Except that she didn’t. She also got decapitated, if you read the next page, but again she didn’t because, head still attached.”

 

“She has multiple timelines,” Porthos says. “She has a picture on her wall, and then the saying, and the Revolutionists. She got beheaded in the French Revolution, she got run over by a carriage in seventeenth century Paris, and here and now she got murdered, hit over the head so hard she died.”

 

“Murder weapon probably a hammer of some sort,” Athos says. 

 

“People only have one timeline,” Porthos says. “There are hypotheticals and possibilities and alternatives, hair splits, gaps, twists. But only one. Only one death. Someone’s playing with time.”

 

“Someone who eats people,” Adele says. “Someone who looks like Athos.”

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Aramis says, coming in, looking around. He storms back out again slamming the door. 

 

“What’s got in his knickers?” Adele asks, pouting at the door. “Never mind. Are we going to start a conspiracy? Get this case solved on our own, outside the law, outside the establishment, wild justice!”

 

“No,” Athos says, eyes on Porthos. “Porthos?”

 

“Hmm?” Porthos says, staring at the door Aramis just slammed. 

 

“Are you with us, here?” Athos asks. 

 

Porthos ignores him, getting up to press a hand to the door. He reaches back and grabs Athos, pushing Athos’s palm to the door instead, reaching for d’Artagnan where he’s sat with Marsac, shoving them together so Athos will read whatever that was. Porthos gropes around but he can’t find it, he lets their hands drop and rests his forehead against the door. 

 

“Uh, Porthos?” Athos says, rubbing the small of his back. “Not that I mind you doing that, but what are you doing?”

 

“Nothing,” Porthos says, angry suddenly. Oh, there it is. Blazing, fiery, familiar rage. He hits the door hard enough that it hurts his hand. 

 

“Porthos!” Athos says, stepping back. 

 

“If Aramis burns this place to the ground let me know,” Porthos says. “I’m going to sit with Sebastian, then I’m going home. I’ll work the case tomorrow Adele, I’ll talk to Anne in the morning and hopefully Elodie will be happy to work with me.”

 

“I’ll see you later?” Athos says. 

 

“Stay at Sylvie’s,” Porthos says shortly, grabbing his coat and leaving, slamming the door in exactly the manner Aramis just did. 

 

He sits with Sebastian and learns a bit about Thérèse but more about the civil rights movement in England. Sebastian wanders through conversation and Porthos just sits and listens, helping to keep the little tiny bit of hope alive in the man. He holds Sebastian’s hand and when he does talk about Thérèse Porthos takes the shapes and colours and sounds of her from him, storing them away so he has more than hair colour and the feel of her hand, next time. Thérèse was, by her father’s account (and it matches what Porthos has gleaned from the case file too), bright, determined, angry about the injustice in the world, fighting. She was just a kid at the end of the day. The only people she had pissed off were the university authorities and those were basically Philippe and Philippe could be a little cruel and very bad tempered but he was also oddly kind, in his way, and loved his university and the way the students engaged with it and the city, with their subjects. He grew up with Louis, a King, and their father had also been a King. They didn’t show much affection or love. His mother had not died, though, and she had gifted Philippe with a softness Louis never got. Agnes, beautiful, ever so gentle. Porthos met her once before she died and Philippe had sung to her, a soft lullaby from his childhood. No, Philippe didn’t kill Thérèse. Langston’s soft sad voice carries on and he might say he barely knew his daughter but Porthos can see her. He’ll recognise her easily, next time, by more than just haircolour.

 

Next time comes earlier than Porthos expects. He’s leaving Sebastian’s house and he brushes against a man just coming up the path, their shoulders touching. Porthos turns his head, the air moving slowly, and his eyes meet Athos’s. It’s not Athos and from here barely looks at him. The similarity falls away after a bare glimpse. This man is rougher, taller, wider shouldered. He gives Porthos a penetrating look then smiles at him and stops, holding out a hand. Porthos takes it automatically and his is gripped tight and held. 

 

“I hear you’re helping Sebastian find out what happened to Thérèse,” the man says.

 

“Yes. Who are you?” Porthos says. 

 

“My name is Grimaud,” the man says. 

 

“Could you please let go of my hand, Grimaud?” Porthos says.

 

His hand is let go and he leaves, off-kilter. He turns at the gate and he can see Sebastian in the window, Grimaud leant over him like a great crow, a big black scarf around his shoulders like a tatty cloak or wings. Porthos shakes himself and leaves. Grimaud must just be a family friend. He’d seemed familiar with Sebastian Langston. Porthos heads home and lies down for a while though his head’s stopped hurting somewhere along the way. He doesn’t want to think about it, but he’s pretty sure the pressure and pain vanished the moment Grimaud gripped his hand. Porthos frowns, the feel of Grimaud’s hand oddly familiar. Like his own against that of Thérèse. He reaches out across the bed and there’s a hand there. He yells and sits up and finds her lying beside him, eyes wide and staring, his hand on hers. He freezes, gagging, choking on the smell. He takes a deep breath and swallows hard. This time, this time he’s ready. He takes a deep breath of the choking sewage smell and lets himself spiral into it. 

 

_ He’s back in the street, waiting for the carriage. This time he recognises Thérèse easily and steps back out of her space. He can see her now, her hair tied up off her small face, flanked absurdly by a woman Porthos doesn’t recognise and Constance, or all people. The carriage comes thundering and Porthos watches Thérèse rush forward and leap onto the running board, watches her lose her grip, fall. He looks around the crowd and sees the shape in the corner of his eye and freezes, staring straight ahead. There. A shape, dark, black cape. Like a crow. Porthos spins, expecting to see Grimaud, but it’s Philippe who’s standing there. Porthos stares, baffled, and when he looks back the scene has changed.  _

 

_ He’s still stood in a crowd. The smell of the air has changed, the shit and piss and bodies smell is worse here. The crowd is quieter this time, watching a square, a guillotine set up in the middle. Porthos looks around for Thérèse and sees her held between two men yelling in French. The sound is distorted and far away. This is imperfect, this is not a memory or real time, Porthos decides. It’s moving wrong, as if controlled by an inexpert master. Thérèse is kneeling, then the blade is already down, and then the blade falls. Her head is still attached, time hasn’t gone forwards but back. Then it’s off in the basket, but it’s just a cabbage. Then a wax work, then a drawing. Porthos waits, and spots the shape again, turns. Feron is overseeing the executions. There’s a line of people waiting. No, Feron isn’t overseeing things, he too is awaiting execution. Porthos watches as he’s lead forwards. Athos is in the waiting line also, and Aramis. Porthos spins and searches, searches. He hears the thunk and turns to see Philippe’s head, it’s rolled to his feet. Porthos stoops and there, there! He freezes, and turns slowly. No Grimaud again but the dark shadowed figure, not Philippe, not Grimaud. No one Porthos can recognise. He stares at the shadows, at the crow.  _

 

“Porthos, wake up.”

 

_ “Come back,” Athos says, staring out of the line, eyes boring into Porthos’s. “Come back.” _

 

Porthos sits up and blinks at Athos, then slumps against his shoulder. He checks the smell but Athos hasn’t worn the conditioner today and he smells like he’s been rummaging through the bins. Porthos sits up and gives him a mistrustful look. 

 

“I went to talk to King Arthur,” Athos says ruefully. “He was sleeping in a skip, don’t ask me why.”

 

“Why?” Porthos asks, then winces. “Sorry. Where?”

 

“Outside the Levesque brothel where we found Aramis,” Athos says. 

 

“Theseus,” Porthos says. “Tinny said she’d been hearing about him. It’ll be soon they go for him.”

 

“Sorry,” Athos says. “And for the smell. He says Louis is watcher, King Arthur is just doing grunt work for favours, and Louis says it will be over soon. I am sorry..”

 

They go through the rest of the evening before Aramis gets home and drops something lit and hot and the house goes up in flames, Athos laughing again, teeth sinking into Aramis’s cheek, Porthos running. He sits up sharply and headbutts Athos’s chin making his teeth clack together. 

 

“Ow,” Athos says. “Hi. Bad dream?”

 

“I said go to Sylvie’s,” Porthos says. 

 

“She’s here,” Athos says. “I just wanted to see if you want dinner.”

 

“No. Did you see King Arthur?”

 

“No, why?”

 

“He’s watching Theseus, you said he told you... In a skip. You smelt funny,” Porthos says, sniffing at Athos’s hair and clothes. Seaweed. “You should wear that conditioner everyday. He can’t counterfeit the sea, I don’t know why. I think he’s all about fire. Doesn’t like Aramis much, keeps eating him.”

 

“Dinner?” Athos asks, stroking up and down Porthos’s arm. 

 

“She was in our bed,” Porthos says, looking over. “You killed her. A fourth timeline. You killed her. Why?”

 

“I don’t know,” Athos says. “Do you want dinner?”

 

“No,” Porthos says. Athos touches his temple. “That’s gone. I have a name to look into, tomorrow. Took my headache away.”

 

Athos embraces Porthos and makes him come down for dinner. It’s nice sitting with Athos and Sylvie and when Aramis gets home he and Porthos cuddle on the sofa and watch TV while Athos and Sylvie do things in the kitchen, their quiet voices carrying through. Shirley joins Aramis and Porthos and they spend a gentle evening together, Aramis’s anger and frustration gone for the time being. He indulges Porthos and give him a shoulder rub and they laugh about the show they watch and reminisce about old jokes and friends and memories. It’s warm and good and Porthos goes up to bed a little late, arm around Aramis’s waist. They hug on the landing, separating to their own rooms, and Aramis gives him an extra squeeze and tell him he loves him. Porthos sleeps well and dreams about Aramis. 

 

In the morning he wakes to the sound of rain, alone in the house and finds Aramis’s note on the kitchen table. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Porthos is sad, Athos is sad, they talk about the dead person.

_Dear Porthos_

_Athos can explain. I’ll see you again but please don’t look for me I need time and that’s something there’s not enough of around here, I need time with myself to think and breathe and work through things, I need to make my peace with things. I wanted to talk to you but there’s just been so much going on recently. I tried to make our last bit of time together happy, I’m sorry to do this I do love you,_

_goodbye,_

_Aramis_

 

Porthos reads the letter once before he folds it back up neatly and puts it in its envelope. Aramis hadn’t sealed it so Porthos can do that too. He places it onto the table and rests his hands on his knees and waits. The rain lets up and the sun comes out, fighting through the clouds then clearing the sky, heating up the day. The clouds return and Porthos gets up for some water and to pee before sitting again arranging himself in the exact same position, as close as he can. It begins to rain, a light misting drizzle, as the sun slowly goes down, finally sinking and letting evening come. Athos gets home cheerful and damp, calling out a greeting, assuring that he signed Porthos off sick, hoping he got rest. Athos comes into the kitchen, hair mussed and fluffy around his face, and leans on the doorframe with a big warm smile. He sees the letter, sees Porthos, and his face falls.

“What is it that you can explain to me,” Porthos says. “Why have you not explained it to me before.”

“I didn’t think he’d do anything until things settled,” Athos says. “What has he done?”

“You don’t know?” Porthos mocks, not looking at Athos. “You who can explain all?”

Athos doesn’t answer. He straightens up but doesn’t come closer, doesn’t leave. Porthos wants him to do something, anything, so he can shout or rage or throw things. Athos just stands there, arms loose at his sides, all shut up in himself, expecting Porthos’s anger. Protected against it.

“What happened?” d’Artagnan asks in a small voice, tiptoeing in around Athos and coming over, taking the letter, ignoring that it’s to Porthos and opening it, skimming over it. “Aramis left? Where did he go?”

“Somewhere I’m not going to bother looking,” Porthos says. “I’m going to bed. Stay at Sylvie’s Athos, I don’t feel like sharing space with you right now.”

Porthos goes to bed and lies flat on his back ignoring that Athos has once again not done as asked: he and d’Artagnan are both still here, Porthos can tell. They’re in the living-room. Porthos has impeccable control of himself, he shuts everything down, one by one closing off his senses until he has just the usual four, shutting things down until there’s no Brightness, no time fuckery, no sensing where Athos and d’Artagnan are. No aching empty search for where Aramis should be. When that’s all done he listens to the rain, wondering at the sound of it in this simple dimension. Shirley comes in once but she can’t find him like this, doesn’t recognise him, and creeps away again. Porthos curls on his side and goes to sleep.

In the morning he gets up, gets dressed, has breakfast, and heads into work, all the while ignoring Athos and d’Artagnan sleeping in the living-room. He goes to Superintendent Royal first and accepts the promotion she’s been offering him for years, along with the responsibility to handle the SU detective unit. He sets up his office next door to Samara and checks through the paperwork before setting up a board to assign duties, then sends out an email to request that the mundane offices go through him when they need a consult. It will take a while for things to pass over to this new system, for now he visits Serge, who’s been handling the requests for consults, and asks that everything be forwarded to him. Milady’s been dealing with giving out assignments but she hands over the responsibility eagerly. By four pm he’s set up in his new job, busy with paperwork. He’s got a notice board set up, has given out assignments for the day, and has an assistant, a young constable called Brujon who Porthos sends around the building with files and to the old office to collect things. By five he’s had three meetings, by six he’s ready to clock off and head home.

d'Artagnan’s there, puttering around the kitchen making a mess, Shirley trailing after him looking a bit droopy. She hides from Porthos- he’s still got everything blocked off. Porthos ignores that and goes to smell the pot that d’Artagnan’s poking at dubiously. d'Artagnan notices his presence and leaps a mile in the air and shrieks, then hits Porthos with a wooden spoon and sends him to sit at the table, sending a glare his way and shaking the spoon if Porthos so much as shifts. It all cheers Porthos up immensely and he’s also cheered by the fact that Athos is not here and not being mentioned. d'Artagnan sets a plate of pasta with seafood and a light white sauce before Porthos and watches over him while he eats it. Porthos suggests d’Artagnan eat too and d’Artagnan drops down into a chair with relief and jams food into his mouth double speed.

“They not feeding you?” Porthos asks.

“Who?” d’Artagnan asks around food.

“I dunno. Constance.”

“She doesn’t feed me. Why would she?” d’Artagnan asks, giving Porthos a slightly incredulous look, mouth still full of food. Then he grins and the tail of a crayfish poke out of his mouth. Porthos looks away and stays quiet until all the food in front of them is gone. “I’m knackered. Can I crash here?”

“If you must,” Porthos grumbles.

“Good,” d’Artagnan says, brightly, and follows Porthos around until he goes to bed, curling up with him in his bed as if they do it all the time.

Porthos doesn’t have the heart to protest and he likes the extra warmth and the arms around him are comforting. The next day he sets up a meeting with Elodie and they run through the case. Porthos agrees with her assessment that everything is ticking over nicely and she doesn’t need a consult from the musketeers. She looks surprised but accepts his judgement. Adele gives them dark looks the whole time but Porthos is done. He’s tired, he’s old, and he’s ready to be more settled; no one can be the centre of excitement all their lives. Adele leaves after the meeting but Elodie follows Porthos to the office and takes the guest chair, filling in paperwork in companionable silence. Porthos should have noticed the slight calculation in that but he is so tired and feels every one of his years on his shoulders.

“Sir,” Elodie says, soft but certain. “I respect your conclusions on the case and I don’t care that you want this job, it’s a good job. But I should let you know that I was pushing back at you because you had no evidence, not because I didn’t believe you.”

“Yeah, alright,” Porthos says, scribbling his signature on Milady’s case files from the morning and dumping them in his out-tray to go down to the closed cases stacks. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it might, sir,” Elodie says, sitting forward and propping her elbows on her knees. “You look butt-hurt, so I’m gonna guess that this is some kind of personal thing and suggest you pull your head out your arse. That’ll help with the butt-hurt.”

Porthos snorts, the laughter taking him by complete surprise. He coughs to clear his throat, then laughs again, covering his eyes and shaking his head. When he looks up Elodie’s sat back, smiling. Porthos sighs and leans back in his own chair, closing his eyes. He can feel tears stinging and rubs at his face. He catches the running man in the edge of his vision and the smell and the sounds.

“You’re right; it’s personal. You’re right; I should take my head out of my arse,” Porthos says, and rubs at his face again. He gives Elodie a sheepish look. “Yeah ok this case is mine.”

“Alright, sir. Adele persuaded me yesterday, while you were busy fluffing your feathers,” Elodie says. “Ah, Porthos, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I,” Porthos says. “He’s not dead though, it was his choice. Fine. I’ll make some choices of my own, I can do that. Let’s set up the board in here. I do have to actually do this job now I’ve accepted it but I can still work cases.”

“One or two of the choicest,” Elodie agrees. “Shall I go pacify Adele and invite her back? Before she spreads whatever rumour, she’s coming up with as we speak?”

“Yes please,” Porthos says.

He’s still upset with Aramis and he’s still angry with Athos and d’Artagnan too though that probably isn’t fair. This is his case, though. He has a grieving father who deserves so much better, a very young woman dead who definitely deserved to live, and something brewing that he doesn’t understand.

“Research,” he tells Adele and Elodie when they get back. “I’m going to get you both access to the library here and you can camp out. I’ll give you a list of parameters and some broader themes, I’ll let Marsac and Serge know details so they can identify texts for you.”

“What are you going to do while we’re stuck in a pile of books?” Adele asks.

“I’m going to Whitehall, I’ll use their library and the British library, see what I can come up with,” Porthos says, bending to scribble his ideas for research out.

He photocopies the three A4 pages when he’s done and hands the photocopies over. He takes the two detectives down to the library and gives them a quick orientation before leaving them in Serge’s capable hands. He’ll let them out tomorrow, have them get back to investigating, that’s what they’re best at after all. This will give them a better idea of what they’re looking for though and it’ll save him the job of doing the library at the station. It’ll also save him the worry of bumping into d’Artagnan there, he’s avoiding d’Artagnan today. Athos will be struggling now, having lost half the unit and Porthos feels a little bad about that but the anger surges up and washes that away. He spends the day at the library and the next, setting up with his laptop, popping into work when he needs to deal with papers and files. Brujon brings him some with his lunch and then comes to get him about eight pm.

“You should head home, sir, it’s late,” Brujon whispers, messing up Porthos’s pile of papers.

“Go away,” Porthos mutters, scratching out some of his notes as he eliminates the possibilities.

“You have graphite smudges, sir,” Brujon says. “You also look exhausted. Plus, I want to go home and I can’t until you do.”

“Bullshit. Fine, though, I’ll head out,” Porthos says, gathering all his things and stuffing them into his briefcase.

“Athos sent me,” Brujon says, falling into step.

“Yeah, I know,” Porthos says. He’d guessed anyway.

“Goodnight, sir,” Brujon says, when they reach the outside world.

Porthos gets the bus home, resting against the window. He gets halfway there before he realises he’s crying, tears streaming over his cheeks. He presses his cheek to the window and lets himself cry. When he gets off the bus it’s drizzling and he stands, getting steadily wetter, weeping dramatically on the pavement until Ali comes and finds him, Treville at his shoulder. They flank him, escorting him home like a delinquent teenager. Porthos takes off his shoes and coat and heads for the stairs. There’s someone sat there. Athos, hunched in on himself, face pressed to his knees. His breathing shudders through him, gusts of tears and grief rattling him. Treville and Ali stand gravely by and Porthos realises they had come to fetch him for Athos, to see this. Porthos glowers at them and Ali leaves, hands up. Treville just glares back. Athos doesn’t notice a thing, too busy crying himself sick. Porthos goes to the kitchen and rinses his face, fixes himself some food. He can’t eat it, though, knowing Athos is out there like that. He’s still got everything cut off so unless Athos notices the mundane way he’s not going to know Porthos is here. Porthos goes back to the stairs and climbs around Athos, sitting the step above, thighs either side of the tight knot that Athos has turned himself into. Athos starts but almost at once recognises Porthos and tries to scramble up a step. Porthos holds him still and Athos twists, moaning, fist thudding against Porthos’s heart as if demanding entry. Porthos wraps him in a hug but does nothing else, hushing him with his voice only, stroking his hair. Athos cries and cries for a long time until he’s just shuddering. Porthos lifts him and carries him up to bed and curls around him and they both sleep.

“Hey,” Athos says, when Porthos wakes. His voice sounds wrecked.

“Yeah,” Porthos says, keeping his eyes closed.

“You left me,” Athos says, incredibly lost and confused.

“Yes,” Porthos agrees. “Don’t try to keep things from me, I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t,” Athos says.

“You told me you were dealing with Aramis. Keeping it away from me. Whatever ‘it’ is,” Porthos says.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t keep Aramis away from you, I told him to talk to you. I kept telling him to talk to you,” Athos says.

“...oh,” Porthos says.

“He’s sad about not having children,” Athos says. “He lost so many, in one way or another, and he’s grieving. He said he needs to make peace with himself.”

“Oh,” Porthos says again.

“I said he should talk to you,” Athos says, sniffing back renewed tears, pushing against Porthos’s chest again. “Porthos!”

Porthos is reluctant. He doesn’t trust Athos. It’s not Athos’s fault but it’s the truth and he can’t really change that.

“You could have talked to me,” Porthos says.

“When? When you were in so much pain from a migraine you were sick and blind with it and couldn’t bear anything near? Or when you were so exhausted you could barely walk straight? Or when you were angry with Aramis and angry with yourself and frustrated with everything?” Athos asks, shoving hard against Porthos’s chest, fingers digging in.

Porthos opens his eyes and looks down, surprised at the feel of Athos’s nails and fingers bruising against his skin. Athos looks as wrecked as he sounds, his hair’s a mess his eyes are red and he’s paler than usual. He hasn’t used his conditioner, he doesn’t smell like the sea. He smells mostly of old sweat and body and bad breath.

“I can tell,” Porthos says, shocked. “That feels different.”

“Yes fine,” Athos says. “Good. Now let me in!”

He thumps against Porthos’s chest again and Porthos’s defences all come tumbling down at once, swept away in a great rush of shocked surprise. Athos floods in after the crumbling walls, filling Porthos up with sharp colours and music, whole landscapes and soundscapes, scents and woodland and groves and oceans and deserts. Great, great, dry deserts. Porthos wraps himself around Athos and Athos sighs happily, going limp, gazing adoringly up at Porthos, smiling beatifically wide.

“What were you saying?” he slurs.

“I can feel the difference,” Porthos says. “Even when you stink and dig your fingers in like that man.”

“Oh. Oh! Shit, Porthos I forgot! Sorry!” Athos cries, scrambling to sit up, putting his arms around Porthos’s head and rocking them. “It’s real, we’re now, this is now, we’re real.”

“I know,” Porthos says, laughing. “That’s what I just said. I can tell, Athos.”

“Right,” Athos says, letting go. They stare at each other. “You left.”

“Yeah,” Porthos says, scratching the back of his neck, rubbing at the bruise Athos has left against his chest.

“Not that,” Athos says, slapping his hand away. Clearly Porthos is not entirely forgiven yet, though it’s a very gentle slap and Athos lays his own hand over the bruise he’s left when Porthos yelps and lets his arm drop. “At work. You’re meant to give notice.”

“Hire Clermont,” Porthos suggests. “He’s friends with my constable and is apparently frightfully eager to work with d’Artagnan.”

“Ha,” Athos says, completely unamused.

“I’m sorry,” Porthos says. “But not overly sorry. I should have accepted long ago, as you’ve been telling me. I think it will be good for me and you, too, to not be working together. Aramis was kind of right to go to Anne. You were indulging me.”

“Was not,” Athos says, then shrugs. “Fine. Just a little.”

“I’ll assign the musketeers to my case, you and d’Artangan can help. We’ll get this solved, then the rest… I don’t know.”

“Ok,” Athos says. “I love you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Porthos says.

He doesn’t bother to say it back. Instead he wraps around Athos again and shows him, all the ways and all the hows and all the whens, sweeping the grief out of him and replacing it with warmth, filling up all the lonely places in Athos with it. They both sleep much better after that.

*  
“The musketeers are gonna help us, along with Brujon and you guys and I’ve got another PC, this is Clermont,” Porthos says, introducing the tall young man who can’t seem to tear his adoring gaze away from d’Artagnan. “We’ve got a lot of work to do so I’m going to assign you different aspects, specific actions I’ll probably leave up to you but I will be reviewing the case often so please update the system before you do something, I need to know so that I can keep track. I know how it goes, if you haven’t got time to do it at least make sure you call in to Brujon so we know where you are. I know this looks like a regular murder case but there’s a dangerous suspect involved and I do not want any of you facing him without backup. That means keep us aware of where you go and what you do.”

“We get it,” Adele says, still a little pissed at Porthos for trying to pull out of the case after her epiphanies and her going against her partner and everything.

“Ok. Detectives, you’re on the murder case as it looks in the non-supernatural world. Follow up on the leads we’ve generated so far, dig up your contacts, see if you can find out any kind of motive,” Porthos says. “Clermont, you’ll be doing the grunt work, door to door, follow up canvas, interviews with witnesses, that kind of thing. Anything sparks, you bring it to Elodie, you too Brujon.”

“Yes sir,” Clermont says, looking a little downcast.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get credit for working the case and I’ll make sure you get at least some of the excitement,” Porthos says. “This team is hugely experienced and you are not, this is just going to be one of the times you sit quietly and learn for most of the time.”

Clermont perks up a little and goes back to admiring d’Artagnan. Porthos tries to stifle his amusement but he doesn’t do a good job of it, judging from the amused looks everyone else suddenly sports. Or maybe they’re all just amused. Porthos frowns, and their expressions mirror his. Athos gives him a poke and he shakes himself, flicking away the fraying edges of his power. He reasserts his grip on it and straightens his shoulders.

“Brujon, you’re on the phones, data input, collating, filing. Boring stuff,” Porthos says. “You’re with me. Right, off you go, there are already actions on the system, I know, I checked before calling this meeting. I’ve done a bit of moving around so you can all easily access your own aspects of the case but I’ve also made sure everything gets categorized. Please enter information accordingly, and leave the top tier alone, I’ll put emergency stuff up there that you all need to know. Check it regularly.”

“Me and Adele did a lot of reading yesterday, Porthos,” Elodie says, thumb running over the rosary beads at her wrist. “I still have no idea what it is that we’re keeping an eye out for. What you described can’t be a phenomenon and you told us it’s not the Fairies playing with time and there isn’t an ability that manipulates time, is there?”

“No,” Porthos says, then grins. “Though Brujon comes close I suppose. Flight will fuck with the movement of time a bit.”

“Really? I didn’t know that,” Brujon says. “I just run really fast, sir.”

“Yeah,” Porthos says. “This isn’t someone with Flight ability though. I’ve looked into sorcery, ghosts, imprints, fragments, control spells. My best guess is some kind of spirit or creature, meaning the technical term of non-human peoples, not the monstrous kind. Kingfishers, nymphs, Sidhe, these peoples live long lives. I haven’t stumbled onto anything about more than one life or timeline, though. My guess is that it’s going to be a situation where a creature and a human, along with some kind of sorcery, some brush with death… you know, little things, love and death.”

“And taxes,” Athos says, nodding.

“And taxes, good point: money. We have a budget, try not to blow anything up, guys?” Porthos says. “I’ll get you all the information I can, keep you updated, try and keep you out of trouble. Remember you’re all coppers, good coppers: work the case, ok? Step by step, gather all the information, go over the ground with a comb. Let’s find out what happened to Thérèse Langston. d’Artagnan, I’m sticking you in a library I’m afraid. Athos stick around a bit please.”

Everyone leaves Porthos’s office. He’s set up a murder room again and they all have desks there where they can check their actions and add stuff to the system or the board, brainstorm, whatever. They’ll hopefully all head out and gather information today. He’s updated the system so they’ve all got actions to follow, even d’Artagnan - Porthos uploaded his notes and reading lists and got d’Artagnan a card for the British Library, it’s about time he had one anyway seeing as Porthos and Athos take great glee giving him info digging to do. Porthos waits for his office to clear, leaving just Athos stood waiting instruction. It’s unsettling. Athos has been his commanding officer, as it were, since they ended up in the Musketeers, years and years of deferring to Athos’s judgement, of leaving him in charge, and now it’s Porthos’s team and Porthos’s investigation. He’s not higher ranking than Athos but it’s his case so he’s in charge on this.

“I have some work I need to do here,” Porthos says. “But I need a favour from you. I didn’t want to put it on the file.”

“Anything, you know that,” Athos says.

“I need you to find Aramis. Not to see him or bring him back, just find him so we know where he is. When you get back, we’re going to go and find Theseus,” Porthos says.

“You don’t do anything by half,” Athos says. “I’ll find him.”

Athos turns on his heel and leaves, not looking back. Porthos finishes up paperwork and assigns cases for the week, deals with his intray and emails, sets up a meeting for Samara with Whitehall for a case, pulls a few strings Milady needs, rejects six requests for consults from the mundanes, and three from Supernatural Patrol. Porthos supposes in this job he should probably not refer to them as Ghostbusters anymore. Or the Spook Squad. Or the Goonies. He should probably not call the mundanes that either; ‘non-supernatural police officers’ or something official like that, he should look it up. He gathers his files and heads for the staff meeting that he now has to attend every Thursday, then sits down with Anne to persuade her to help him get an audience with her husband. He leaves a message for Athos with d’Artagnan and heads for the Royals’ home in West Kensington. Louis jr is home and it’s he who answers the door, four nearly five and with the biggest eyes, full of innocence and delight and mischief. Porthos knows better than to take the boy for anything other than what he is - half Kingfisher, fully Royal, he takes what he’s owed and he is owed Porthos’s service. Porthos grits his teeth and accepts it. For now. King Louis the thirteenth comes strolling down the hall to stand with his son, beaming down at the boy. He definitely is Louis’s son: when he smiles back, Porthos can see his teeth.

“Anne called,” Louis sn says shortly, pushing the door wide enough for Porthos to step inside. “Sun-king, I have business.”

Louis jr bows and runs off laughing, taking the hand of a woman waiting in the shadows, heading deeper into the house. Porthos isn’t invited further than the hallway. He kneels reluctantly.

“You want a favour Vallon,” Louis says. “You never kneel to me.”

“I kneel to your son, sir,” Porthos says, which isn’t really true but it has a nice ring to it and sounds good. It makes Louis brighten up considerably, too. He waves a hand and Porthos straightens. “I do want a favour though. I need to speak with Theseus.”

“Theseus is dead,” Louis dismisses. “You can ask me.”

“I can’t,” Porthos says, and smiles. “Your son demands my service, sir. I can ask you nothing but favour and goodwill, now.”

“That’s why you bowed,” Louis says, his turn to grit his teeth. Porthos lowers his head in deference. He learnt a long long time ago how to use deference to his advantage.

“I mean no offence,” Porthos says.

“You still can’t talk to Theseus, I have no control over that and even if I did I don’t care enough to help you,” Louis says. “You killed him it’s hardly my fault.”

“You know as well as I that he hibernates, protected by the dryads,” Porthos says. “I ask nothing more than respite and cease-fire. A day. You can grant that, you are the Watcher.”

“You guess and bluff,” Louis says. “I’m no Watcher.”

“I guess nothing; I know,” Porthos assures. “Arthur told me: you are Watcher, assigned so by the Fisher King. You watch Theseus and wait for him to wake and you can grant me a cease-fire.”

“If you can pay me you can have eight hours,” Louis says, tiring of the game, looking for his son.

“What’s the price?” Porthos asks. “You like money but I know I’m not paying you.”

“Give me your heart, that will cover the cost,” Louis says.

Porthos nods and reaches into his jacket, feeling around in his pocket until he finds the loose sheet of paper he got from the musketeers’ office to bring. It’s a handwritten copy of ‘Still I Rise’, written out by Aramis a long time ago. Porthos got Athos to add the title and author and on the back Athos has written a promise that he loves both Aramis and Porthos. Porthos hands it over and Louis sneers at it but accepts it, striding into the house calling to the sun king. Porthos leaves and breathes a sigh of relief, heading back to the station to pick Athos up.

They drive out to the brothel. What used to be a brothel, anyway, now it’s just a building that’s had the top floor roped off by police tape for years. Porthos ducks under the tape and Athos follows. They go straight to Theseus. He’s grown, filling the flat with green and nature, water dripping from the taps. The cocoon around him is so thick Porthos isn’t sure he can get in to talk to Theseus, anyway, even with the promise of no harm from the Watcher. Kingfisher law is ruthless but slow, happy to take its time, happy to leave the day-to-day for the Watcher to choose the path. To wake Theseus though is down to Porthos, Kingfishers could do it easily but none would, not for any price.

“Athena always wakes him,” Porthos mutters, frowning, more to himself than to Athos. “Stories… Athena…”

“Any ideas?” Athos asks.

“No,” Porthos says. “Athena is a goddess and mythological. I haven’t got goddesses or mythology. I have stories…”

“What about the dryad magic?”

Porthos frowns and then decides that yes, he can use that. He plants his feet shoulder width apart and firms his stance, reaching for the growing things, the heart of the life here, for the acorns Sylvie left here. He draws his story around him, Athena’s sword, keeping his hold of the centre of life, and roars, telling the story with his body and his heart and his lungs, carving the world around him so the growing vines and branches take hold and curl around it, around Athena’s sword and the great hero Porthos. It swallows them whole and the sun comes shining in through the windows and the cocoon peels away. Theseus wakes.

“Holy hell, Porthos,” Athos whispers.

Theseus isn’t happy to be woken and he’s even less happy to find out that it’s Porthos here and that there’s a promise of respite, but only eight hours. Eight hours of life is like blinking to the Kings and Theseus is less hunter more warrior besides and cannot bear stillness. A hunter can lie still and wait but the warrior is much more restless, in Porthos’s experience. He isn’t much for talking on the best of days, Porthos has heard, and today is not the best of days. He’s a king as well as a kingfisher and Athos is a lord and comte and has noble blood that runs blue back, back, back to French and English monarchs. He steps in and demands what he has just now decided is his birth-right. He looks up at Theseus and waits.

“Fine, what do you want sunny boy,” Theseus snaps at Porthos, the living structure of the flat wavering and snapping with him: it has grown to him.

“You were in France in the seventeenth century with Louis the thirteenth,” Porthos says. “I need to know what happened when Louis’s carriage ran down a child.”

“Give me the memory,” Theseus says. Porthos lets it go without a fuss, letting the King’s magic take the shapes from him. “Ah. This is a memory I don’t have, even though I was there.”

“Yes,” Porthos says. “There’s another, at the guillotine.”

“Show me,” Theseus says. “Keep this one, these are disgusting.”

Again, Porthos submits to the magic, this time gripping the memory so it doesn’t slip away. Theseus spits the other back, too.

“I haven’t this either,” Theseus says. “These are not dreams?”

“Memories,” Porthos says. “You haven’t seen anything like this before? Multiple time lines?”

“Once, a long time ago,” Theseus says. “But that was in Greece and did not ever happen in the sense of your word.”

“Myths. A god,” Porthos says. “A Greek god. I was right, this is going to come down to sex.”

“And death,” Theseus agrees. “Cronus.”

“And the other?”

“A nymph,” Theseus says. “She was never named.”

“A child?” Porthos asks, but only gets a shrug in return. Theseus is done with him. He bends and re-sets himself into stone and Porthos stirs the air so the branches grow around him again. He sits, suddenly exhausted and terribly sad.

“Did you find out what you need?” Athos asks.

“No,” Porthos says. “Philippe and Louis jr are the children of Kings and humans, it’s not hugely rare. But, they have no power, not like this. No ability should be able to manipulate time. Cronus never bent time, not in our histories.”

“Maybe it’s not what this is,” Athos says.

“You think I’m wrong,” Porthos says, shoulders bending. “Maybe I am.”

“No, I don’t,” Athos says. “But perhaps you haven’t worked it out yet. Maybe it’s not a question of time. There are other explanations - illusion charms, for example. This house was twisted up and whole worlds and times created, maybe it’s like that. Scenes constructed and then used.”

“The second one, at the guillotine, maybe. Maybe. At a stretch that could be created, I could probably do it,” Porthos says, flicking his fingers to help himself visual how. “I could, with a push and a bit of luck. Not the first one though, that happened. You can’t create real like that.”

“Then I don’t know,” Athos says, kneeling beside Porthos. “You’re tired, sleep on it.”

“You can’t create it,” Porthos says, pressing his fingers to the earthy floor, feeling the life of the trees. “This dryad growth here is real, there’s no faking it, but it’s been forced to imitate the protection spells the dryads used, that I used. In my memories, whatever time they’re at whether they’re real or hypothetical or what, I see you. Someone might be able to twist just enough to make what’s real change just an inch, just enough.”

“And that, that’s not like changing or creating time,” Athos says.

“No it’s not. That is like dark magic and ability, things that I can see and hear and grasp onto. That is something real and solid. The child of a God,” Porthos says, looking out of the window. “Yeah, if Cronus and a Nymph had a child, they could put that twist in.”

“What next?”

“Next we find the Nymph.”

“We can ask Father.”

“No, he’s not old enough,” Porthos says, considering. “I think Hera might be. Do you remember the guardian in the park? I think they might remember.”

“Can we ask?” Athos says, dubious.

“How stupid are we feeling this week, Ath?” Porthos asks, sitting up, grinning.

“Not stupid enough.”

“Aw, don’t be a big silly. We’re always stupid enough,” Porthos says, bouncing happily to his feet.

He has a plan.

*  
“You want Charon to what now?” Flea asks, crossing her arms and leaning against the crates of books she’s been sorting.

Charon’s sitting in a huge arm chair, looking like a cat that got the whale. As a ghost he’s not technically supposed to own a shop and make a profit but he manages and runs the shop for the company who bought and rebuilt it and they leave him well alone, giving him free reign. He does employ people who are still alive but for the most part he and Flea run it. Porthos is standing trying to look contrite, Athos is glowering from the door not even bothering to come inside.

“I dunno anyone else angry enough,” Porthos says.

“I am pretty angry, it’s true,” Charon says, pleased as punch, as if he’s just been given the ultimate compliment.

“This is going to explode in your face,” Flea says. “Go ahead, what do I care? Dead, alive, what’s the difference?”

“Yay,” Porthos says. “Thanks for your blessing. Come on, Char.”

Charon and he run like they used to when they were boys, pushing and shoving, making for the playground as if racing for the swings. Charon could just pop over easily but he runs with Porthos, the lightness in him ever-brightening since his shop was rebuilt. Porthos will never believe Charon burnt it down himself, not with his ghost like this. Athos follows them at a grouchy walk and d’Artagnan meets them there with Marmalade and Treville.

“Who’s gonna play conduit?” Porthos asks.

“You’d better,” Charon says. “Not sure what it is you need, you’re going to have to guide me.”

They draw out the circle in the wet ground near Hera’s lake. It’s raining, there’s not many people around, they brought Brujon and Clermont to set up a vague cordon. Porthos sets out oranges around himself and kneels. The spell will do most of the work but he will have to direct the energy, the oranges will help both. Marmalade isn’t happy to have been brought outside, he’s big and fat and lazy now, but he’s happy enough to snooze and purr in d’Artagnan’s arms while Athos weaves the spells. Porthos knows the moment Athos hits on the right note because Marmalade’s fur stands on end and he tries to escape. Porthos finds the energy and directs it into one of the oranges. He watches Marmalade waiting for it to happen again, when it does he uses the second orange, and the third, the fourth, the fifth. Athos stops talking and his phone quiets.

Porthos gathers the magic around him and lets it beat in him, waiting. Charon steps forward, uncertain now, he meets Porthos’s eyes and Porthos almost breaks the circle. Charon kneels in front of Porthos and looks right into Porthos’s eyes, like when they tried to read each other’s minds as a game when they were small. Porthos shows him the energies and Charon nods, still not looking away, lightening further. Porthos understands. He nods in return and bows his head, raising his hands. Charon presses his own to Porthos’s palm to palm, not touching, not breaking the circle. He takes a deep breath and lowers his head, too, anger suddenly rushing through, sparking on the oranges, turning to rage and then, finally, fury. The air burns, thicker and wilder than Porthos has seen, fire licking at the sky, and Charon tips his head back and screams. Porthos waits, waits, waits until the fire gathers, then pulls the energy from the oranges and directs it to Hera where she’s sat among the rocks watching them. Everything disperses, leaving a woman standing before Hera.

“You brought me the furies, sunshine child,” Hera says, standing, unbending herself from the rocks and trees and earth.

“You can avenge your child,” Porthos croaks, not daring to look at Charon. “This anger belongs to you, if you will take it.”

“A strange, wild kind of justice,” Hera says, considering.

“Like the fire,” Porthos whispers. “It will burn everything, even you.”

“Yes, I will avenge my child. Thank you. What do I give you in return?”

“The nymph Cronus had a child with,” Athos says.

“Two children. You are looking for my sibling?” Hera says, and laughs. “Good luck to you. Their mother is not mine but she, too, was daughter of Gaia. I think she still walks this earth, if she does, they called her Medea.”

Porthos nods and gets to his feet to face Charon, to press their foreheads together for the last time, to hold him. To say goodbye. Charon looks like he used to, like Porthos remembers him – light and happy, grinning at Porthos, ready for mischief. He’s got the look Porthos hasn’t seen since the night the shop burnt, the one that always made him look so young. He lets Porthos hold him then presses their hands together, palm to palm, their foreheads.

“Flea is going to kill me,” Porthos whispers.

“She’ll understand,” Charon says, calm and gentle. Porthos sinks into the gentleness, he’s missed the kind softness of Charon so much. “She’ll understand, she better understand. I want this.”

“I don’t,” Porthos says, tightening his fingers over the backs of Charon’s hands and holding on.

“It isn’t your choice,” Charon says. “I’m not sacrificing myself or some shit, come on Porthos.”

Porthos nods and lets go, takes a deep breath and lets go again, leaves Charon to burn the anger up within himself and drift away. Then he and Athos walk away and leave the others to the fire, to revenge, to destruction.

“Take me home,” Porthos pleads. “I can’t bear any more.”

“We are leaving Charon?” Athos asks.

“He died ages ago. Let him go, he wants to,” Porthos says, not looking back.

Athos takes him home. He has to call Flea to tell her, not that she won’t already know. He does that briefly and then sleeps deeply. He’s dreaming a strange world of car doors and children and manikin dummies when he’s woken by the distinctive coldness of graves. He sits up and grabs for Athos, getting a handful of hair and a sleepy grumble of pain. He spots Charon stood by the window, head tilted to one side. He lets Athos’s hair go and Athos snores loudly, asleep again.

“What?” Porthos croaks. “You arse, I told Flea!”

“Sorry. I thought I was just anger,” Charon whispers. “Turns out, not so much anymore. You know you used to go on and on about clearing my name and saving me? Maybe you weren’t quite on the wrong track.”

“Oh,” Porthos whispers. Charon smiles at him. He hasn’t smiled as a ghost, not really. He grins and pulls faces that look like smiles but this is genuine, a little boy smile full of affection.

“Yeah, my thought too. I might work on it,” Charon says. “Sticking around, being… I dunno.”

“No more burning stuff,” Porthos says.

“Maybe. Always liked that though,” Charon says, shrugging. Porthos snorts and lies back down, Charon coming over to sit on the bed. “I already saw Flea, we’re good. She’s a bit mad at you.”

“Gee, thanks,” Porthos mumbles, already falling asleep again.

“Thanks,” Charon says.

“You too,” Porthos agrees, taking hold of Charon’s fingers. “For helping. For coming back.”

“Sentimental twot,” Charon says, fondly, and Porthos falls asleep.

*  
“I need the budget, Porthos,” Samara says, leaning forward, irritation and frustration rolling off her.

“I know. I’ve allocated money to the case though and I haven’t got anymore,” Porthos says, also frustrated but keeping it in check. He hadn’t thought about this aspect of his new job. He sits up straighter, suddenly remembering that he’s been doing it for his team for years and it’s not actually anything new. “Give me your budget, I’ll move stuff around for you so you can have a PC.”

Samara huffs but sends him an email with her spreadsheets and he has a fun half hour playing with numbers until it’s sorted. He finishes updating the departmental budget sheet and works out a few new algorithms for his spreadsheets and works out how to make a drop-down menu so that selecting each case or detective working in the department will bring up each different spreadsheet. He’s feeling thrilled with himself with Adele knocks perfunctorily on his open door and comes to drop heavily into his guest chair.

“How is it that all you grown up professional detectives remind me so much of my students?” Porthos asks.

“Because everyone is human and you are very annoying,” Adele says. “Common denominators. I need help.”

“Where’s Elodie?”

“Busy. I think we found something,” Adele says. “Elodie suggested the ME get a magi in to look over the body before releasing it and we just got a report through from Constance.”

“Take me through it?” Porthos asks, side-eying the file Adele is waving around. He has a slight stress headache from staring at spreadsheets.

“Ok. Thérèse Langston died as a result, probably, of poison, according to the report from Connie,” Adele says. “We’ll take that, because the ME couldn’t give us a definitive CoD. St Bartholomew’s, where you found her body, is where she died, post mortem someone inflicted the stomach wound and bashed in her head. Time of death is twelve am. From the canvas we’ve found two witnesses; a woman who saw Thérèse Langston enter the church forty minutes before she died, and a woman who saw a priest enter the church two hours before she died. No one saw the priest exit and the woman can’t identify him.

“Thérèse Langston’s family and friends have been interviewed. Her mother is dead and she has no siblings so her family is pretty much just her father, who you’ve spoken to. From him we’ve learnt that she was a bright, determined young woman, studying history of medicine, part of a group of women who call themselves the Revolutionists. We’ve questioned these women and they all admired and liked Thérèse, her closest friend was Fleur Boudin. They say she had no boyfriend and in fact was ‘queer’ and in love with detective Larroque.”

“Really?” Porthos asks, grinning. “Did Ninon know?”

“No, she realised a few of the women were vaguely infatuated and most looked up to her, but no, not that Thérèse was in love with her,” Adele says. “There’s no motive for murder and all the women in the group have alibis; two were in class, Fleur was at her father’s house in Norfolk, and the other two were together in the library, all were witnessed where they say they were. There’s no motive for her death as far as we’ve found.”

“The poison?” Porthos asks, scribbling a few notes.

“A spell. Potion number something, Connie says. The report says it’s a mix of herbs, dark magic and stone,” Adele says.

“Stone?”

“Yeah, limestone,” Adele says. “Connie thinks it’s just a filler, or to make it white or something.”

“Mm,” Porthos says, thinking. “In spells limestone can be used as a base, it’s conductive but not too conductive, it holds the spell without being volatile. It’s used in things like memory bombs, it can stabilize a solution.”

“I have the list of herbs and the spells Constance suspects might have been used,” Adele says.

“Thanks, add it to the system. Can you leave me the file?” Porthos asks.

“Yep,” Adele says. “Thanks.”

“Sure. Limestone was used in spells in France in the seventeenth century to treat hollow bones and bone breaks,” Porthos says, recalling something vague from an old lesson, years ago. “I’ll look into that and the composition of the poison. Can you talk to Sebastian Langston again and ask him if the family has ever had any contact with kings. Also ask him about Thérèse’s mother, see if Thérèse went straight to university from school, see if you can get anything about her in school. Anything at all about her background.”

“Can do,” Adele says. “Elodie’s following up at the uni, asking about poison and so on, I’ll tell her to ask about the vic’s background.”

“Good. Ok. Update the system before you head out, please,” Porthos says.

Adele leaves and Porthos sets about pouring over the report. He gets bogged down in other work the rest of the day and has a lot of sympathy, suddenly, for Athos refusing to go out with them sometimes or hiding from paperwork in the British library; running a unit is hard and boring a lot of the time. He has meetings and gets home late, bringing the report and a stack of reference books about herbs with him. He sets himself up at the kitchen table, keeping half an eye on Shirley who’s attempting to cook… something. Ali comes down and helps Porthos with medical stuff for a while, before getting bored and flitting off to drink with Treville. Those two have been thick as thieves, lately; Porthos is half-convinced that they’re dating.

“Do ghosts date?” Porthos asks when Athos comes wandering in wearing pyjamas, hair all mussed.

“Why not?” Athos says, heading for the kettle. “Sylvie wants some kind of funky tea you made for her once?”

“Shirl, can you find the Oolong tea please?” Porthos asks, and watches as the shape of the poltergeist disintegrates and sends out a tentacle to the top cupboard, throwing the tin of tea at Athos. It hits him on the chest and he catches it. “Thanks sweetheart. What are you cooking?”

Shirley resolves herself back into the tall, slim teenager she currently favours and points at the hallway, making little impatient taps across the floorboards like scuttling feet until a goblin comes shuffling in to take the pot. Porthos is relieved that it’s not something he has to eat and fills the room with affection for the people in it, making Shirley preen. Porthos waits for her to be done bathing in his approval and leave before turning back to Athos.

“I wish Aramis was here,” Porthos says. “He’d be able to work this out in three seconds flat.”

Athos doesn’t reply, staring at the kettle as it boils. Porthos supposes there isn’t much to say and goes back to working his way through the composition of the poison, taking notes on each element. Constance has given him a lot to work on, she’s left post-its with how the elements might fit together. He sends her a text asking to meet tomorrow, then he puts everything away and rests his head on the table and misses Aramis a lot. He feels a gentle hand on the back of his neck, knuckles then a palm. He assumes it’s Athos so he’s surprised when Sylvie makes a sympathetic noise.

“Hi,” Porthos says.

“Athos is missing him, too,” Sylvie says, taking a seat next to Porthos. “Do you want tea?”

“No,” Porthos says, sitting up. “Did you have a nice afternoon?”

“Yeah, it’s nice here,” Sylvie says. “I didn’t steal Athos away from you, did I?”

She doesn’t usually ask that, trusting Athos to deal with that and work it out with Porthos. He looks at her and she smiles at him, shrugging.

“No, I had work,” Porthos says.

“You two are a little bit dysfunctional without Aramis, aren’t you?” Sylvie says.

“Little bit. We’ll get used to it, work it out. He’s been around for pretty much our entire relationship and neither of us are romantically involved with him but we both made commitments to him. We’ll learnt to live without him,” Porthos says, feeling the bitterness of that but having no way to curb it. And no wish to. Aramis left, it was a betrayal. “I’ll learn to live without him.”

“I’m your friend, as well as Athos’s girlfriend,” Sylvie says. “Ok?”

“Appreciate it,” Porthos says. “Are you going to teach summer classes at the uni, this year?”

“Maybe,” Sylvie says. “If Philippe offers me the work I’ll take it.”

“I won’t be able to, with this new job,” Porthos says. “I’ll miss it.”

“We’ll miss you,” Sylvie says. “You’re a good teacher.”

“Yep,” Porthos agrees, grinning. “I’m the best. Oh, oh! Do you remember about a month back we were looking at trailers and there was that documentary we wanted to watch?”

“Yeah,” Sylvie says, bouncing in her seat. “It’s here? Finally?”

“Yep,” Porthos says. “At the indi cinema.”

They talk about films for a while and make plans to go, and Porthos feels like this might be a way to live without Aramis; for years his life has been Athos, Aramis, more recently d’Artagnan, maybe it’s time he started fostering other attachments, looking after his other friendships. He can invest more in those and less in Aramis. Athos comes down after an hour looking for Sylvie and Porthos must be in a happier mood because Athos comes right over to him and leans into him, listening to them talking, face clear and content.

*  
“The victim was born in a small village in Herefordshire, her father is Sebastian Langston, well known civil rights activist (thanks for the info on him, Porthos), her mother was Kingsley Langston, born Kingsley Hatherton. Mr Langston says the family had no contact with Kings but the Hathertons did, Kingsley’s mother married a King who died. Kingsley herself died four years after Thérèse was born, she drowned, and Sebastian brought his daughter to London to be closer to his family. Thérèse was a quiet shy child and had trouble at school but when she was about twelve she manifested as a Psychic,” Adele says, reading off her notebook.

They’re all gathered in the murder room for an early meeting Porthos called to get updates. He stops Adele with a raised hand, finishes a note to talk himself to whoever taught Thérèse when she manifested.

“Psychic isn’t an ability,” Porthos says. “People use it that way but it’s actually a mis-categorization. Most people who ‘manifest as psychic’ usually come under the umbrella of Cognizance, which is a family of characteristics.”

“A characteristic being a technical term in this case,” Athos says.

“Right, yeah, a characteristic is a heightened competence, the supernatural capabilities that people sometimes have,” Porthos says. “Psychics tend to have a spiritual characteristic, which just means they’re super sensitive to ghosts and phenomena and can see lots of stuff.”

“Ok,” Adele says, glaring at her notepad. “They just told me psychic.”

“Give me the name of her teacher at the time, I’ll follow up,” Porthos says. “It’s a small technicality and might not matter, sorry for the interruption, carry on.

“Right. After that she got a bit less uncertain and got some help with the things she was struggling with, which helped her confidence. By the time she sat her GCSEs she was a good student, after he a-levels she was a good candidate for university,” Adele says. “She was popular, had a lot of friends, did a lot of the usual teenage things like parties and shopping, I dunno. When she was in her final year of a-levels she had an English teacher who influenced her a lot and she started to be politically active, her reading habits became more focussed on feminisms, and when she started at the uni she joined LGBT, feminist, Green Party, societies with a political, activist element. In her second year she set up her own society and met the rest of the Revolutionists.”

“Thank you,” Porthos says. “Her grandmother married a King who died?”

“Yeah, Sebastian didn’t have a name,” Adele says, apologetic.

“If you have dates of marriage or death I can find out,” Porthos says. Anne can, anyway, and probably will if he gets all his paperwork in and his budgets in order, which he will. “Leave that with me too. What did you get from the university, Elodie?”

“The victim was an average student,” Elodie says. “Clever and quick, but with problems. There was some suggestion of dyslexia and she read very late.”

“One of her struggles at school,” Adele says.

“Her main activity was the Revolutionists. The group is made up of Fleur Boudin, the vic, Emilie Josette, and Sofia Martinez, the four of whom are the core of the group and the ones who come up with ideas, and Caro Dubois and Jackie Maurie who are best friends and seem to be in the background. Boudin is the youngest and usually a follower more than an ideas person but she’s very intelligent and I think probably comes up with solutions and ways to instigate the plans. Emilie Josette is wildly passionate and principled, a wonderful speaker, very persuasive. I think she is probably the belief of the group, the one who actually believes. Sofia Martinez is tough, she came up with their most recent protest, an art project that involved turning everything around campus phallic in order to draw attention to the phallogocenterism and patriachy entrenched in the education system. Penises everywhere.

“Emilie and Fleur are the brains, Sofia and Thérèse were the ones who acted. There’s nothing they did that would get Thérèse killed, to be honest. Most of what they did was either like the art project, all about penises and shock value and the visual, or involved organising talks on prejudiced pedagogy. They ran some very impressive talks, they managed to set up a symposium this spring with speakers interested in teaching on an intersectional basis and focussing on the language biases in academia.”

“Were they working on anything before Thérèse died?” Porthos asks. “And do you have a list of the symposium speakers, any speakers they’ve got in as guests in the past?”

“Yes, and yes. I’ll put the list on the system. Boudin told me that the vic was working on getting a speaker for a talk but wouldn’t tell them who it was and Martinez said they were going to bomb the history faculty with glitter bombs, I’m not sure what that was about.”

“Did any of them know who the speaker Thérèse was looking to get was?” Athos asks.

“I think Martinez did but she wasn’t really telling me much,” Elodie says. “Not a fan of police.”

“Let’s send d’Artagnan to chat,” Porthos say. “Thanks. Have you got anything for us, Johnny?”

“Libraries are really boring,” d’Artagnan says, but gets up and takes over by the board. “We haven’t found anything on time manipulation as an ability but there is a lot of dark magic that focuses on time.”

d’Artagnan hasn’t got much to add that Porthos hasn’t already heard from him and after that the meeting breaks up and Porthos hurries down to Superintendent Royal’s office with his paperwork and budgets, gets a promise from her to follow up with Louis about the dead King, and just manages to make it in time for his meeting with Constance. The Magi’s tower is busy and something explodes when Porthos walks in which is entirely his fault according to Joshua, the magi involved in the spell that just imploded around him. Porthos ignore the man and finds Constance in her corner, herbs laid out around her, a bag of limestone dust in the middle. She greets him with a kiss on the cheek. He hasn’t seen her in a while, between the case, Aramis leaving and the new job he’s not had time to do much recently.

“It’s wonderful to see you,” he says, embracing her. “How are you?”

“Good, John wants to buy a house, have babies, get a ISA and a Ford Focus and a dog,” Constance says.

“Is that the plan?” Porthos asks, trying to imagine it.

“He also wants to grow a huge beard and moustache. It’s not my plan, I plan on continuing to put money into my savings and pension, retire early, travel the world. I think a cat,” Constance says. “I’m being facetious. I don’t want children though.”

“Me either,” Porthos says, fervently. “Athos does and Aramis does and d’Artagnan does, they’re baby mad. Shall we run away together?”

“Let’s,” Constance says, linking their arms. “Live in childless bliss.”

“Sounds utterly lovely,” Porthos says.

“I suppose we should work,” Constance says, sighing. “I think someone was very, very unkind to our victim, Porthos.”

“I thought for a bit that it wasn’t about her that she was incidental,” Porthos says. “There’s got to be more to it though, Sebastian… I don’t know. And this poison. There’s definitely something personal there.”

“Yeah. How are you doing with the time stuff?”

“Better, it’s all fading.”

“Interesting. This is sage,” Constance says. “Did the vic have Ability?”

“No. Maybe,” Porthos says. “Adele was told Thérèse was psychic.”

“That’d do,” Constance says. “If the person is magical the sage has an odd effect on the bodily excretions. If you touched the body you touched the poison, which I think is geared to firstly give access to the victim’s mind and secondly to create what the ME saw with the marks of the carriage and the guillotine, without actually marking.”

“The limestone would mess with her bones,” Porthos says. “It could have been used to break her up inside like she got trampled. I get it. Are we going to recreate the poison?”

“I want to try and get the mental component of it,” Constance says. “I think that internal stuff would have been premorten, which is what makes me think you’re right about it being personal. That is…”

“Torture,” Porthos says. “They wanted something from her. Ok, but let’s not break my bones and shite.”

“Just play with your head,” Constance says, examining her herbs gloomily.

They play around for a bit, going over what each herbs has been and can theoretically be used for. The first thing they come up with makes him giggly and high, the second makes him lie on his back for twenty minutes watching butterflies, the third makes the running man come back and Porthos watches as the magis’ tower is torn to piece and Constance dies and Aramis is dragged in to have Athos’s teeth sink into him. Then Constance is back and making him drink something and Marguerite is berating Constance.

“It’s not real,” Porthos says, sitting up. “It’s not time at all.”

“I don’t think so,” Constance says.

“Thank god,” Porthos says. “Thank God. That wasn’t right, though. There was no temporality there. I think that component must come from whoever’s doing this. It hasn’t felt real every time it’s happened either, which means that whoever we’re looking for, they were at that church watching me.”

“Cheerful,” Marguerite says. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” Porthos says. “Thank you, but I really am fine.”

He and Constance make notes and upload their recordings onto the computer and go over their data and then Porthos heads back to his office to do some other work. Anne’s waiting for him, though, with a grim faced Louis, Louis jr sitting in Porthos’s chair playing with Marmalade.

“You have a name,” Porthos says.

“Kingsley Hatherton was the daughter of Kingfisher Christina Alexander, Count Dohna,” Louis says. “The Kingfisher died. We do, eventually. Kingsley’s mother, already pregnant, disguised the fact and remarried quickly, she never told anyone that the child was that of the Kingfisher but we knew.”

“Thérèse was the granddaughter of a Kingfisher,” Porthos says.

“The granddaughter of a dead Kingfisher who’s entire family has since died: Kingsley Hatherton’s mother Aurelie, Kingsley herself, Thérèse. This is our business now,” Louis says. “There is only one Kingfisher alive who knew Christina Alexander, Count Dohna, and that is Theseus. It seems you have got your wish, Vallon: Theseus is pardoned.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a bit long so I'm gonna write an epilogue separate.
> 
> WARNINGS: endangered child, canon typical violence

“So,” d’Artagnan says, swinging into Porthos’s office with a warm smile and a waft of cake scent, a mug of Athos’s posh coffee.

Porthos has been charting d’Artagnan’s progress through the station with that cake and coffee and knows very well that d’Artagnan’s here for a favour. He pretends to be immersed in spreadsheets (d’Artagnan and Athos were teasing him over how much he liked spreadsheets just last night) and just grunts.

“Cake?” d’Artagnan offers, trying again, passing the plate beneath Porthos’s nose, disrupting his typing.

Porthos takes the cake and goes on typing.

“Coffee?” d’Artagnan says, now barely holding back amusement, enjoying the game. Porthos takes the mug and keeps typing and d’Artagnan laughs. “You’re just writing ‘apples apples apples’.”

“Should’ve brought me an apple,” Porthos says, typing it again.

d’Artagnan ducks back out of the office and Porthos waits, deleting his nonsense and plugging in the numbers he’s playing with. He sends the file off back to the system and pulls his intray to him, signing off a bunch of Samara’s cases that can go to dead-space, either closed or cold. He starts making a folder for a request he’s passing to Athos and d’Artagnan reappears, plonking an apple down on the open file.

“Ta da,” d’Artagnan says.

“If Athos realises you’ve nicked his snack apple he’ll eat you instead,” Porthos says, taking a big bite of the apple in question. Athos has a knack of picking the juiciest ones. “What do you want?”

“Martinez saw you and thinks you’re beautiful,” d’Artagnan says. “The gossip goes.”

“Gossip?” Porthos says.

“Constance chatted with Fleur Boudin,” d’Artagnan says. “Knows nothing useful but a LOT of gossip. They’re third cousins six times removed or something.”

“And?” Porthos asks.

“Come and sit and look pretty while I talk to her?” d’Artagnan asks, dropping into Porthos’s spare chair and spinning, giving Porthos big puppy dog eyes. Then he stops and straightens with a more professional look. “Could do with your observation skills, if I’m working on getting her to open up you can keep an eye. Two is better than one. I am bored of working on my own.”

“All reasonable reasons. Ok,” Porthos says.

“Fabadabadoo,” d’Artagnan says, clapping his hands. “Are you gonna share that cake?”

“What do you think?” Porthos says, tugging the plate protectively closer.

“I miss you,” d’Artagnan grumbles, spinning again, fond and grouchy and irritable.

“It’s a good job,” Porthos says.

“It’s a job,” d’Artagnan corrects. “The Musketeers was family. Me and Athos aren’t important enough without Aramis?”

“Gonna have a different life now,” Porthos says. “With, you know. Friends. Outside interests. Hobbies.”

d’Artagnan makes a disbelieving noise and shrugs, giving the impression of a seventeen year old. Porthos sends a pointed text to Adele asking if she and Elodie want to grab a drink after work and gets invited to Elodie’s house to play with Marie while Grit and Elodie be grown ups in the kitchen. It seems like an outside interest thing to do so he accepts and shows d’Artagnan the text chain. d’Artagnan just steals his cake and tells him to get a move on. Now that he and Athos are no longer in crisis it seems that Porthos is in trouble with d’Artagnan for leaving. Porthos shrugs and sits in the front seat with a placid expression while d’Artagnan drives angrily to campus. They put their stuff aside when they head to the Union where they’re meeting Martinez, though. Tension is not helpful when interviewing grieving young women and it seems petty and inappropriate when they still have their friend and she’s lost hers. They sit around a table with Sophia Martinez, both next to her, opposite each other.

“Sorry for your loss,” Porthos says, taking the gentle role they know she’ll dismiss. She does, with a slightly incredulous look and a shrug.

“Are you going to tell me you grew up like me, be all ‘empathetic’ and try to build a relationship?” she asks.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” d’Artagnan says. “I just brought him to brighten up the view. This Union is skanky.”

“Nice,” Martinez says. “Vaguely racist, distinctly uncharming, how white male of you.”

“I’m not here to talk political correctness with you,” d’Artagnan says, dismissive and rude. “I just want to find out who killed your friend. He wasn’t very kind about it, or gentle, or pretty.”

It takes d’Artagnan a while to find the right tac, but he does in the end. He hits the right note when he mutters something about Constance and pretends to forget himself, name checking a few feminist authors and then when she gets up to get tea d’Artagnan apologises to Porthos for the display earlier. When she comes back she’s a little more amenable. d’Artagnan asks her the easy questions she doesn’t mind answering, moves on to the slightly wacky, and finally tosses an ask about the speaker in as if uncaring.

“Oh for fuck’s sake is that all you wanted to know?” Martinez asks, and Porthos laughs, unable to help himself.

“Like you’d tell anyone,” d’Artagnan mutters, a little pissed off.

“It was just some guy she’d found on the internet who had this thing about the importance of connections,” Sophia says. “Went by G.P King, some kind of French academic heavy weight.”

“Thanks,” Porthos says.

“Christ, you’re so genuine,” Sophia says, turning on Porthos. “Pretty, but far too optimistic. I’m an empath and you are projecty. How did you grow up like us and still end up like this?”

“Determination,” Porthos says. “Mistakes. Friends. Family. Faith.”

“You’re a God nut,” Sophia says.

There’s such a sudden and ferocious backlash of emotion at that, Porthos reaches out for d’Artagnan automatically, anchoring himself. It’s like he set off a memory bomb or something. He’s swept away on a tidal wave of memories that aren’t his own as Martinez’s grief for her friend connects with something in her past and clicks with something in Porthos. It’s guided, targeted, and Porthos turns sharply, following the bright running man, but he can’t spot anyone except a couple of what look to be professors. He recognises them and passes on, looking, searching. He can smell the sewage again, the thick heat smell of bodies and dirt and shit. He grips d’Artagnan’s hand, hoping not to fall, but it’s no good. He twists back to his first foster placement and then to the present. He opens his eyes and sees Athos coming toward them. Athos who smells like the sea, or maybe it’s d’Artagnan who smells like the sea. It’s real, anyway. Porthos lets go of d’Artagnan and looks around.

“Where’d Sophia go?” he asks.

“She bolted when you invaded her head,” d’Artagnan says. “I assume by accident.”

“That was her, she’s the empath,” Porthos says. “She gave me- anyway. He’s here. G.P King, our suspect, whoever he is.”

“Here?” Athos asks, breaking into a jog to reach them. “Philippe invited us for lunch I was just coming to pick you up. He’s here? Where?”

“There!” d’Artagnan cries and takes off, sprinting around the balcony for the stairs.

Porthos watches as he loses his footing and goes crashing down. He waits for time to unravel or Athos to grow teeth but this is real. He runs down to kneel by d’Artagnan. The bones Aramis once fixed are broken, d’Artagnan’s ankle at an odd angle. His face is white and he looks up at Porthos, eyes glazed with pain. He’s looking past Porthos.

“That is not looking good,” Athos whispers.

“No,” Porthos says. “Call an ambulance.”

“Porthos,” d’Artagnan says, linking their fingers, eyes trying to focus. “Porthos. Come here.”

Porthos kneels closer and lifts d’Artagnan. He can feel the beat of his heart, the flutter of it, can hear the gasps of pain. There must be something else wrong as well as his ankle, his breathing is choking and getting wetter. Porthos lifts his hand away and sees blood. He shouldn’t have moved him. He lays him down again but d’Artagnan is choking, clutching Porthos’s fingers.

“Porthos,” d’Artagnan whispers.

“Yeah?” Porthos asks.

“Try this,” another voice says and suddenly he gets a shaky flood of emotion that has nothing to do with d’Artagnan or Athos or now, all the lonely terrified fleeing thoughts of a small child left alone in the dark. He takes a deep breath, he learnt this long long ago, and turns on all the lights in him, brushing it all away, burning everything to luminescence, turning all the dark shadows to beautiful purples and browns and deep blues. He breathes again and turns it all inside out, washing all the fear and smallness away. “Oh. Shit. Oh god.”

“That is determination,” d’Artagnan murmurs.

Porthos opens his eyes and finds himself almost face down on the table, a hand held in the grip of d’Artagnan, another in the grip of Sophia who’s staring at him with a wide-eyed look, tears flowing over her cheeks.

“Sorry,” he croaks, letting her go, tugging at the edges of his ability to try and draw it back.

“Don’t take it away,” she whispers. He leaves it with her and wraps her carefully up within his chest, keeping her close as long as she needs it.

“Charlie,” he whispers, not letting go d’Artagnan.

“Yeah,” Charlie says, cradling Porthos’s cheek. “Ok, yeah.”

Porthos nods and breathes out, btraths trembling and ragged. He shuts his eyes again and reaches out, searching, sifting the things around him until he finds the shocking neon light, the running man flaring and crashing through him.

“He’s here,” Porthos says. “Do we find him?”

“No,” Charlie says. “No idea how to stop him or even what he’s doing.”

“Good point. Not feeling stupid, today,” Porthos says. “Charlie.”

“Fine, if you like,” Charlie says. “I have a feeling you just shared something you’d rather not, so I guess I will return the favour.”

“I think G.P King was an alias,” Sophia says. “Tee didn’t agree with him, I think she wanted to have a debate with him, make some kind of point. She thought his magic could revolutionise the way we teach but she didn’t like his opinions. She was my best friend.”

“Yeah,” Porthos says.

“Did you have someone like that? Someone who just, I dunno, got it? She was a middle-class kid with loads going for her but she understood, somehow. She had her own shit to carry and we just clicked. We helped each other,” Sophia says.

“Yes, I had people like that,” Porthos says. 

“Tee was like, pure as anything, total innocent, but also hard as nails at the same time. She had real balls,” Sophia says. “What do we do now?”

“Fuck knows,” Porthos admits.

They give Sophia a ride to Sebastian’s house, in the end. They leave them both to their shared grief and return to the station to finish out the day. Porthos returns to other work and d’Artagnan looks through G.P King’s online imprint. He finds very little: all the articles seem to have been deleted and most of the evidence that G.P King even existed wiped. Porthos sends it over to IT and puts d’Artagnan back on researching what G.P King could be. Porthos spends the evening with Marie and Adele, lying on the floor chatting while Marie climbs all over them and farts in Adele’s face and pokes her fingers up Porthos’s nose. He sleeps well, dreams about d’Artagnan and Marie, about Charlie and the sea, and wakes refreshed and to coffee and slightly burnt toast, care of Athos, and snuggles, also care of Athos.

*

Porthos is just finishing adding three new assignments to the system and is about to get up and put them on the board, adding two to Samara’s caseload and one to Jackson’s, who’s just come back working part time after an injury, when Brujon gives a discreet tap on the open door and slides inside with a pile of files.

“Do you have a minute, sir?” Brujon asks.

“Yes, just a sec,” Porthos says, making sure everything’s gone live and getting up to scribble on the whiteboard. Samara’s on lunch and Jackson hasn’t come to check the board yet today so he doesn’t need to do anything else. He turns to Brujon. “Are those for me?”

“No sir, for detective Strong, you said to take anything I found to her,” Brujon says, lip held between his teeth.

“Well?” Porthos says.

“She isn’t here,” Brujon says, sounding wretched. “She’s meant to be, but she’s not. Neither is her partner.”

Porthos checks the system. Adele’s out with Clermont doing a couple of interviews, but there’s nothing about Elodie. Porthos picks up his phone and dials her number from memory then, when there’s not answer, Marguerite’s. Marguerite answers sounding flustered.

“Oh, Porthos,” she says, when she recognises him. “What?”

“Where’s Elodie?” Porthos asks.

“No idea, I’m about to blow up the lab,” Marguerite says. “Marie’s been making a fuss about going to nursery El’s been late a couple of mornings Dela usually covers.”

“Ok, thanks,” Porthos says. “Go stop things from exploding.”

He leaves a message for Elodie asking her to call in when she gets a moment, making a mental note to cover for her if her boss checks up, then waves Brujon into the guest chair. 

“It’s Kingsley Langston,” Brujon says, putting the folders on Porthos’s desk, his elbows following, propping his chin on his hands. “I finally found the case files from the accident, someone had misfiled it. It was ruled an accident because of lack of evidence to the contrary but the detective who looked into the death was sure it wasn’t one. Clermont talked to her and she says that Mrs Langston was dead before the accident. It happened a while ago, before we had many forensic measures for the supernatural. Detective Mitzou said she felt a charge and thought a spell -”

“Mitzou? Iphigenia Mitzou?” Porthos asks, sitting up. “This was Flea’s case?”

“Um, sir?” Brujon asks. 

“I knew her,” Porthos says. “Sorry. Her instincts are good, she says it was a spell?”

“She said she suspected dark magic,” Brujon says. “I brought the original case file, detective Mitzou’s personal case file that she kept, I also brought, I’m not sure it’s relevant but there was another case a week later. A car accident at the exact same spot. And then another, a week after that.”

“Dark magic can linger just enough,” Porthos says, taking the files and dumping them in his intray. “I’ll talk to Flea. Thanks Brujon, that’s really good work. Do you want to come with me? I’ll be taking a sample of the poison and spells that killed our vic and seeing what similarities Flea can find.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir,” Brujon says, smiling broadly. 

“Good. I have other work for you right now, I have a list of files I need for that consult and couple of admin things I could use help with,” Porthos says, passing over both lists. Brujon nods and scurries off. Porthos is about to settle in to go over the case he’s consulting on for Supernatural Patrol when Athos sticks his head in and then his body and then he sits in the chair Brujon just vacated. Porthos raises an eyebrow and Athos winces. 

“I found him,” Athos says, sliding an envelope over the desk. “Took longer than expected.”

Porthos’s heart does an odd flip and Athos stands, giving him an anxious look before going to shut the door. Porthos wonders why until he realises he’s going to cry. He rests his head in his hands and tries not to but Athos comes over and rubs his shoulders and cradles his head against Athos’s stomach and he can’t help it. He shuts his eyes and lets himself dampen Athos’s jumper, holding onto the envelope. Athos murmurs, stroking his hair, and   
Porthos covers his mouth to stop the sound coming out. He’s thinking about Flea, remembers her being ‘detective Mitzou’, remembers her making detective before him and him being seriously proud and happy, she’d been so young and even though it was partly her sensitivity that got her promoted so fast she quickly earned her place as one of the best at the job. He’d done a lot of footwork on her cases, she’d always asked for him if she could even when he was a sergeant. And then she was gone. And now Aramis is gone. Athos works to calm Porthos, fingers playing over Porthos’s neck and shoulders and cheek, spreading warmth. 

Porthos shrugs, taking a deep breath, sitting up, Athos’s hands trailing. He opens the envelope. It’s just the name of a village, a hotel, a phone number. Porthos tapes the seal back up and puts the envelope into his pocket. He’s got work, he doesn’t have time to miss Aramis. Or Flea. He’s got a new job, new responsibilities, a case; he’s moved on. He looks around for what responsibility he can have right now and remembers the consultation. He puts that aside. 

“Coming to see Flea? She worked the case on Kingsley Hatherton,” Porthos mumbles, leaning back into Athos, rubbing his face into Athos’s jumper, smearing his tears. 

“Yes,” Athos says. 

“When Brujon comes back.”

Porthos stays with his head against Athos’s heart until then, resting, eyes shut, thinking about Aramis and missing him. When Brujon knocks on the door, though, Porthos sits up and lets go of Aramis. He’ll move on, let it all go, let it all go. He claps his hands, gathers his troops, and heads out. Athos and Porthos bicker over who’ll drive and so Brujon ends up driving, getting Porthos’s car while they’re bickering. Athos climbs into the back and sulks all the way to the bookshop, he perks up when surrounded by books, he’s a bit of a book guy in the end. Porthos doesn’t care as long as he can read it and get what’s in it, Athos likes the covers and the design and the weight.

Porthos walks the shop, trailing his fingers over the books. Charon’s shelving things, radiating calm, the shop around him quiet. He smiles at Porthos in welcome and even Athos gets a half smile, and he points them back to the office to find Flea, who’s expecting them. She has the three of them in the back with coffee, she introduces herself to Brujon, hugs Porthos, ignores Athos. Porthos sets the case he brought on the table and opens it, showing Flea the samples he and Constance made of what might have been in the poison. 

“This,” Flea says, picking up the limestone, then one of the tangerines. “And this.”

“Dark magic and limestone,” Porthos says. “Who was Kingsley’s mother and how did she die? I think that’s worth asking. Any brothers? Any of the men in the family being knocked off?”

“No, sir,” Brujon says, flicking through his notepad. “Kingsley had a younger brother, the son of the man Kingsley knew as her father, her half brother I suppose. Her mother, Aurelie du Prè married Thomas Hatherton as soon as Christina Alexander, count Dohna, died she didn’t even attend the funeral. I found Christina’s death record though, he died of a rare disease called hollow bones.”

“It’ll kill a Kingfisher,” Porthos tells Athos. “Their bone density is different to ours. Limestone is a cure for humans but for Kings it will only speed the disease.”

“What happened to Aurelie du Prè?” Athos asks. 

“She died in a car accident,” Brujon says. 

“Unfortunately, I didn’t investigate that one,” Flea says. “When I took Kingsley’s case I did look into Aurelie’s accident but the report was brief and the police didn’t give a damn, there was no detective Mitzou I could look up for info.”

“We need to start with Thérèse,” Porthos says. “Hopefully when we find out who murdered her we’ll find out about her family deaths as well. I’m going to try and find Medea. Brujon, I’m going to reassign you to help d’Artagnan. When we find this guy we need a way to bring him down.”

*  
Finding Medea doesn’t turn out to be difficult; Theseus comes to Porthos and tells him, free once more and paying off the debt he owes Porthos so he never has to see Porthos again. Medea never existed. There was no nymph, there was no half-Kingfisher half-nymph child. There was another Kingfisher; the Fisher King and Cronus, lovers over many life times, parents to a single child. They had been neither kind nor stable and they’d given the child to the nymphs to raise, to Hera’s mother Medea. He had offended the nymphs, playing too much with his parents’ power, and the nymphs cast him out, fostering him into a human family with a mother named Theresa Pruthi. The powerful, at that time, did get fostered into the human world sometimes, in the hopes that they would create roots and ties and learn about weakness or something. Porthos gives the task of finding Pruthi, when she doesn’t come up on a quick search of DMV and social media, to the mundane officers and gets himself dragged out for a drink by Adele. 

“You never come anywhere, you have a nine to five job now you should be partying ,” Adele says. “Elodie’s going home to be boring, you have to come with me.”

“Have to, huh?” Porthos says. “Alright. You’re buying though.”

“Fair enough,” Adele says, linking their arms. 

She takes him to The Bucket. Porthos hasn’t been to a cop’s hangout since he was in uniform and he can’t keep the grin off his face when he steps inside. He recognises about half the people sitting around, pretty much exclusively from the non-supernatural side of things, only Serge holding up one end of the counter with Treville representing. Still, Porthos has worked with a lot of the people here and he’s greeted as he gazes around. He goes over to check in with Jane Tan, the beat sergeant he works with now and then. They get a round in and then PC Mieko Ando comes over and he hasn’t seen her since they banished two ghouls together so they get chatting, and Jonathan Pinter (no, no relation to THAT Pinter) comes to slap Porthos on the back and congratulate him for something and somehow he loses Adele for about an hour, by which time he has been plied with drinks for stories and is buzzing and unsteady on his feet. Jane, laughing at him, guides him over to a corner and sits him down and he looks around again and there’s Adele, sat looking amused with a bottle of cider. 

“There you are,” Porthos says. “Thought you’d left me.”

“You’re the popular one, I got shunted aside for all your cool friends,” Adele says, smiling. She has a lovely smile, soft and kind. 

“Yeah, this is great,” Porthos says. “You drinking alone?”

Adele shakes her head and nods toward the bar, Porthos follows her eyeline and sees a tall woman with wide shoulders and a big stomach coming over, another bottle of cider and a bottle of beer in one hand, a pint glass of clear something in the other. She sits astride the stool opposite Adele and Porthos, dwarfing it and the table and turning Adele tiny and delicate. 

“Water,” the woman says, giving Porthos the pint glass. “Looked like you could use it. I’m Jacqui.”

“Porthos,” Porthos says, holding out his hand. It’s engulfed by Jacqui’s, her skin dry and warm against his. 

“Nice to meet you,” Jacqui says. “Dela, I’m heading off after this one, if you’ve regained your company.”

“Stay,” Porthos says, sprawling back into the bench seat, yawning massively. “I’m not sure if I count as company.”

Jacqui only stays for the one beer anyway. Adele hugs her when she leaves and Porthos wonders if they’re dating. Apparently not, Adele talks for about ten minutes about Jacqui being an old great friend. Porthos listens to her enthusiasm more than her words, he’s sleepy and feels like the world is well with him, everything smiling down. 

“Ah, I missed pubs,” he says, comfortably, resting his hands over his stomach and looking around again. “We mostly go in to deal with phenomenon these days.”

“Alcohol and ability,” Adele says, as if by rote. “Aramis has given me the lecture.”

Porthos slides a little lower in his seat, glowering. Aramis. Aramis. 

“Bloody d’Herblay,” Porthos mutters. 

“Oh are we not mentioning his name ever again?” Adele says. “Very well. I have been given the lecture.”

“Anyway, my ability happens to very much like alcohol,” Porthos says, sniffing. 

It’s… semi true. His sense of well-being began with a small burst of nostalgia, walking in here, but as he got drunker and people were nice to him and complimented him it grew to fondness, and somehow other people became fond, and well-being sort of spread, and by now it’s kind of all glowy and warm, permeating the pub. It won’t hurt anyone, per se. They’ll all have very nice evenings and go home feeling big and warm. 

“Mmhmm,” Adele says. “Is that why I feel all saturated with sunshine?”

“Sashurated withss sushine,” Porthos slurs, enjoying the susurrus of ‘s’s and shushes over his tongue. 

“I felt that,” Adele says, sprawling back, resting the cider on her knee. “I am getting you tipsy again, this is wonderful.”

“You’re wonderful,” Porthos says, looking at her hair, watching the sunshine catching in her curls. He reaches out to twine his fingers into it, twisting it around him, around them. “Hmm.”

“I should take you home,” Adele says. “I’m not going to, though. I’m going to buy you chips before the kitchen closes, get you a coffee, and enjoy this.”

She’s as good as her word. She leaves him for a little while and Treville comes to talk to him, which is nice (Porthos still has his suspicions about Ali and Treville, he does a little nudging and digging while they’re all feeling so happy but Treville gives nothing away). Porthos watches Adele at the bar, hopeful for food and good coffee. This is a cop bar, there has got to be some good coffee here, and Adele spends enough time here that she knows how to get the good stuff. He watches her as she comes back over with a plate and large mug and he’s right; it is good coffee. Good stodgy chips too, with cheese piled on top and plenty of vinegar. Adele eats about half of them without Porthos noticing, he’s busy with his coffee and people-watching. When he does notice he moves to the next table with his food and doesn’t let Adele sit with him until he’s got everything there is to eat into him, where she can’t get it. 

“Can I sit with you again yet?” Adele calls, peering over the divide between the benches, hair tangling. 

Porthos sits with her instead and does her hair, letting her rest against his side. She’s not entirely sober either anymore, though she’s only tipsy. He’s sobering up but the sunshine’s still around like a warm bubble. He calls a taxi, when the bar closes, and takes Adele home to crash on the sofa, humming to herself, hair like a halo of curls around her. He covers her over and climbs the stairs to his own sleep, still deeply content. Athos is sat up looking blurry but welcoming. Porthos’s heart leaps at his messy hair and pale white face and t-shirt. He gets out of his clothes and kneels on the bed, cupping Athos’s face, then sprawls over on top of him. 

“Hi,” Athos says. “Could feel you miles off. You’re drunk.”

“Mmmmmm,” Porthos agrees, drawing the sound out, enjoying the feeling of it rumbling back through him from Athos. “I like you, de la Fere. You’re alright.”

Athos wraps his skinny arms around Porthos, and Porthos wriggles closer. Athos smells faintly of seaweed, his hair’s soft. He’s familiar and crinkled, pyjamas soft and worn. Porthos snuggles in closer and hums again. 

“You smell like coffee,” Athos says. “I don’t think you actually smell like coffee but I can smell coffee.”

“You are coffee,” Porthos explains.

It’s Athos, which is lucky- Athos never needs Porthos to explain things. Porthos lets all his muscles go loose and lets out another humming gusty breath against Athos’s neck. 

“I love you,” Athos says, softly, holding Porthos. 

“Yep,” Porthos agrees, smiling. 

“I thought I’d restate it,” Athos says, still soft and quiet. “I wanted to say something, some kind of declaration, but, that’s it. It’s just that, only that. I love Porthos.”

“That’s me,” Porthos reminds him, pleased. 

“Yes,” Athos says. “That’s you, and you’re here, and I am grateful.”

Porthos hums a last time and falls asleep. 

*

Adele tracks Theresa Pruthi the next day by checking old police lists from protests in the sixties, there aren’t proper records but Adele finds a driving license that expired thirty odd years ago and from there an address and then two forwarding address, and finally an updated address from a takeaway place. Athos and Porthos find her living in West Kensington with a woman called Juliet. The house has the look of a long-lived-in home, objects and books that look like they have grown roots. The two women move around with ease and joy, their things about them unnoticed but cared for, loved. Photos of a child and teenager, of Theresa and Juliet abroad, in the garden, on a walk. Art that looks as if it’s originals, carefully hung. The kitchen is the heart of the house, here there are herbs and spices and even, Porthos feels a dizzying unreality about it, bread baking. Theresa has a scarf around her hair and her face is beautiful and warm as she greet Juliet, more closed off when she greets Athos, and wide eyed when she sees Porthos. He’s equally wide-eyed about this strange house, this home, this constructed unreality that’s somehow real. There’s a faint smell of Jasmine about everything and it feels sunny even though the day is grey. Theresa refuses to talk about her son but Juliette follows them out, bare-foot, and they lean on the garden gate together to talk. 

“It was hard on Theresa, she loved the child so much,” Juliet says. “He was a healthy, happy boy. She’d been told he was a problem case and difficult to manage but he was sunny and bright and perfect in every way. When he was eighteen he discovered his birth family and Theresa says they had a fight. He left. She hasn’t seen him since. That was forty years ago.”

“Thank you,” Porthos says. “He was a good kid?”

“Yeah,” Juliet says. “I was a foster kid, I wasn’t a good kid, I had all kinds of problems and got into so much trouble. When I finally hit my twenties I got good care and with help I’m well and happy now, but it wasn’t like that with Grimaud.”

“Grimaud?” Porthos asks, straightening. Athos glances at him probably feeling the snap of anxiety. 

“That’s Theresa’s son’s name,” Juliet says. 

“Fuck,” Porthos says. “God damn it!”

“Porthos,” Athos admonishes. 

Porthos turns on his heel and leaves. He gets in the car and pulls away with a jerk, stops with a jerk so Athos can jump in, roars away. He drives one handed, the other to his forehead. Grimaud. He met him, he shook his hand, he looked into his eyes. He knew Grimaud had been familiar. It god damned had been him holding Porthos’s hand, imitating Thérèse, imitating Athos. He’d looked a little like Athos in real life, on Sebastian’s path. Porthos goes blues and twos and bombs through town, Athos hanging white knuckled onto the handle. They park on the pavement outside Sebastian’s house and Porthos runs right in. 

“Sebastian!” Porthos shouts, and then again, crashing through the house. He nearly runs straight into Athos in the hallway, coming down from the upstairs. “The front was open.”

“He’s not upstairs,” Athos says. “Is there a garden?”

“And a summer house!” Porthos says, bolting for it. 

They find Sebastian there, shut in a closet, pale with fright. He says there was someone here looking but then they’d heard the sirens and run off. Porthos helps him sit, sitting heavily himself, so glad he put the lights on. He holds Sebastian’s hand and works to calm himself then projects it to share it with Sebastian until they’re both breathing deep and even. Athos is leaning in the door smiling a bit dopily, the effect of the calm Porthos is spilling, he’d not had the kind of adrenaline rush Porthos did. 

“That’s nice,” Athos mumbles, slipping to sit on the floor. 

“Oops,” Porthos says, stopping with the calm and giving Athos a little bit of excitement. Athos stands back up looking embarrassed. “Someone was here, someone? You know who it was.”

“A man called Grimaud. He came a week ago and he told me he could help,” Sebastian whispers. “I’m sorry. He helped, he helped me.”

“He killed her,” Porthos says. “He killed Kingsley, and Aurelie, and maybe Christina Alexander, Count Dohna, too.”

“I know,” Sebastian says. “He told me. He said he was going to kill me too, to make it neat. Then he went to buy cigarettes. He knew I couldn’t leave this house, it’s where Thérèse grew up, I couldn’t let him destroy all these memories. He was toying with me. I hid, he knew he’d find me, I knew he’d find me. He’ll be back for me Porthos.”

“Yeah he will,” Porthos says. “You’re coming to the station with us. I can help you preserve your memories another way, I promise you. Bring what you need, Athos will help you pack. Get him sorted and get him out, I need to look around. Send Connie my way and maybe Serge.”

“Got it,” Athos says, heading out with Sebastian. 

Porthos works tentatively until his backup arrives, going over the flat without touching anything and trying to avoid things he gets zaps off. He stands in the livingroom staring at the picture of Thérèse for a long time before he can move away, drawn to it by the thick eddy of charges there. He wants to step into it but he tears himself away and continues his methodical search. He finds a lot around Thérèse’s things and then he steps into Sebastian’s bedroom and reels. There’s no zap, no charge, just flickering time and this, this is how Grimaud ‘helped’ Sebastian. Porthos had thought Sebastian meant with the investigation. He sits down on the floor with his knees against his chest, eyes wide, and watches Thérèse grow up, Sebastian’s love, his emotions, sinking into Porthos. He’s still sat there resting against the side of the bed when Constance comes upstairs. 

“Don’t touch me,” Porthos croaks. 

“Your eyes,” Constance whispers. 

Serge comes huffing up the stairs complaining about being dragged into the field again and cursing Porthos’s name. 

“Oh,” he says, when he walks in and Porthos turns to look. 

“There's time here,” Porthos says. “We thought it was illusion.”

“Child of Cronus and the Fisher King, gotta have something going on,” Serge says, sitting on the bed and opening a briefcase. “Luckily I came prepared. What do you want?”

“You got cloves?” Porthos asks. “Lots of them. All of them. And tangerines. Anything.”

Serge closes the briefcase and takes a shoulder bag from Constance instead, unpacking a variety of conduits. Porthos sets the oranges around himself in a shaky circle then takes handfuls of the cloves. He doesn’t have time to make the pretty pomanders Aramis used to do, he just squashes the cloves into the tangerines, pressing what he can into them. Constance contains each and when he’s done the entire circle things are better. It’s Thérèse’s entire life, though, and a man who loved her imbibing everything with emotion. Porthos grabs water and his phone, then changes his mind and takes Serge’s phone instead, an old brick and worth about fifty pee. Porthos pours the water over the phone and discharges all the emotion he soaked up, trying to keep the tatters of Grimaud’s spell work and time from washing away with the rest. He takes the spices from Constance’s stash of conduits and dumps them out onto his thighs, letting go the bits and pieces he managed to keep, breathing out a sigh of relief and gathering the spice back into the pot so Constance can stabilize and contain the magic. He casts a release with his phone and then slumps against the bed. 

“I owe you a phone,” he tells Serge, holding out the remains of the one he blew through. “This one’s emotionally crippled.”

“You know we couldn’t quite get the poison right?” Constance whispers. Porthos nods. “This is why. This isn’t the magic we learn, Porthos. It feels like your ability.”

“Soul magic,” Porthos says. “Dark soul magic. That could maybe play with time. My Mum used to do this thing, I never used to sleep well and she’d gift me extra hours of sleep. She used soul magic, my ability, what she remembered from Haitian magic. It wasn’t really extra time but it was a gift from her god, she said. More rest than fitted in the night. It didn’t charge like our magic and so it never disturbed me.”

Porthos swallows hard. Watching all those memories from Sebastian, the family life and unconditional love of a parent, he misses his own family. His lost mother, his poorly cared for childhood, his lost friends, Charon and Flea. He misses Aramis. This isn’t the time, he’s busy. He sets it aside for another time and moves forward. With Constance and Serge at his back, her spellwork and his knowledge, he trips the zaps and soaks himself in Grimaud’s memories and magic. It’s thick and cloying and there’s something sluggish about it, as if the darkness has clung and keeps it slow. Time’s all wrong, as well. Grimaud comes slipping in and out of his own memories, shifting things and twisting things, melting into Athos, fading back to himself, to Thérèse and to Athos again. He has a memory of kissing Porthos that he has no right to at all. He’s messed with time and illusion and created it. 

“I know how to find him,” Porthos says, when he’s done. “I know where he’s gone. We need to find a way to beat him.”

*  
It’s late by the time Porthos gets back to the station, the supernatural SoCO team keeping him a while. He’d stayed to supervise, anyway, not trusting them to get everything he needed. Grimaud fled from them, why Porthos isn’t too sure yet, and he left a lot at the house that can be used as evidence. Porthos would very much like Grimaud in the ground, dead, but he’s a cop. This way there will be enough for a conviction. So it’s late when he gets back and he has a headache, he heads for the Musketeers’ office on autopilot, finds Marmalade, and curls up in the window seat. He’s about to doze off when he feels someone watching him. He sits up again and sees Sebastian, sat in an armchair that’s new. Porthos sits cross-legged and holds the cat in his lap, yawning. 

“Sorry,” Porthos says, looking around. “Autopilot. Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You didn’t,” Sebastian says. “I was about to go find something to do, I am not good at sitting still with nothing to occupy myself.”

“There’s a library,” Porthos says, vaguely. “And a cat.”

“Athos was called away. There was a young man here, white, tall, long hair?” Sebastian says. “He went to the cafeteria for coffee.”

“Did he? Good god, I wonder why? That stuff is awful,” Porthos says. “That’ll be d’Artagnan.”

“I think he may have been going to talk to a young woman about me. White, long hair in a twist, spectacularly beautiful,” Sebastian says. 

“Constance,” Porthos says. “Probably, if d’Artagnan was following her around like a puppy. She’s his partner. Have they looked after you here?”

“Yes,” Sebastian says. “d’Artagnan says there’s a safe house I can stay at. I would rather go home.”

Sebastian shifts, agitated, fingers clenched against the arm of the chair. He’s older, here, than on his own turf. He seems to have aged, too, with grief and fear. Porthos watches him for a moment, brain a little sluggish. 

“Oh. Your memories,” Porthos says, remembering his promise. “Let me show you?”

Sebastian hesitates, then deflates with a nod. Porthos goes over to him and sits on the floor facing him. He hasn’t done this for years and then not with someone he knows as little as Sebastian. He knows Thérèse though, and he’s sure that’s enough. He threads his fingers with Sebastian’s. He remembers Father dipping in and out of him and he can find the springs and moths and butterflies himself now. He shuts his eyes and monitors his breathing, counting himself until he’s rhythmic, his breathing and heartbeat, until he can feel the blood in his veins, the sweat on his skin, the muscles beneath the skin. He opens himself up and rebuilds the memories he found in the house, careful stone by careful stone, colouring and shading, adding the feeling and sound and smell as he goes, using illusionary magic he’s not really supposed to know let alone use, bits of Dryad magic he gathered from Kiki and her cobnut sister; gifts from the little girls he’s seen grow up. He stays with Sebastian for a long time, sharing the memories he found, took, kept. When he opens his eyes Sebastian has his closed. 

“Hey,” d’Artagnan says quietly, from the windowsill. “I don’t want to disturb you, just to let you know I’m here though.”

“Hi,” Porthos whispers, gently letting Sebastian’s hands go, watching him sigh and relax against the chair. 

“You really do astound me sometimes,” Athos says, from the doorway, gazing at Porthos. Porthos scratches the back of his neck, embarrassed. Athos smiles at him. “Your eyes are blue.”

“Really?” Porthos asks, turning to d’Artagnan for confirmation and getting a nod. “Huh. That’ll be Aramis’s stuff, I think I nicked something.”

“Grimaud talked to me, before I hid,” Sebastian murmurs, not opening his eyes. Porthos gets a chair and sits opposite Sebastian. He has questions. 

“He left his foster family,” Porthos says. 

“He found his father and the Fisher King and he didn’t like them, was angry,” Sebastian says. “Bitter. He felt like he had lost his life, they took him away from the place he was powerful and left him to, as he put it, ‘fester’. This was when he was still living with the nymphs. He took the power back, he stole fire.”

“Christina Alexander, Count Dohna?” Porthos asks. “Where did she come in?”

“She was a kingfisher, she could not marry so far below her, Cronus protested the match with Aurelie,” Sebastian says. “Grimaud was there, he was still just a child really although as a King he aged slower, I don’t know how exactly that… kingfisher law is brutal, Christina Alexander, Count Dohna, wanted to marry. Cronus was manipulative and unpleasant and she wanted to be free of him, so she obeyed the kingfisher’s laws.”

“She killed him,” Porthos says. 

“Yes,” Sebastian says, sighing. “Cronus was a tyrant and the kings are easier without a God among them, but his power, Grimaud wanted it and wanted to learn it and with Cronus dead, his birthright was gone.”

“He killed Christina Alexander, Count Dohna,” Porthos says. 

“He says it was an accident. He was young,” Sebastian says, sounding weary. “I do not know or care. He did it, he fled, the nymphs would not take him in. Kingfisher law doesn’t allow for revenge. Grimaud says it was not revenge and was entirely lawful, I don’t know.”

“It isn’t,” d’Artagnan says. “What? I studied kingfisher laws a while back for a case. Avenging your father is not legal under their laws. Taking the life of the one who killed him yourself is an act of emotion. Grimaud might argue that there was no emotion, that his father had disowned and disinherited him in which case he might have been legal.”

“Except that he kept going on about his inheritance,” Sebastian says. 

“Disinherited he cannot inherit familial power,” d’Artagnan says. “But he can claim birthright.”

“It’s complicated and doesn’t matter,” Athos says. “He went back to the nymphs.”

“He did,” Sebastian says. “They took a little bit of his memory and gave him to the Sidhe, who took a little time to give him the opportunity to grow up. He was fostered. He says he learnt from the nymphs and the fairies’ manipulation of him and when he was eighteen and learnt of his family, he remembered.”

“Aurelie?” Porthos asks. 

“Grimaud wanted his birthright pure,” Sebastian says. “He said it had to be pure, that Aurelie marred it. That Kingsley and Tee marred it and tarnished his honour. That was when you came.”

“Why did the sirens scare him off?” d’Artagnan asks. 

“He was telling me about his memories, I think that whatever he did upstairs to find Thérèse for me opened up him, too. He was emotionally open, vulnerable,” Sebastian says. “And you are Bright, Porthos. Memories are easy for you.”

“Yeah,” Porthos agrees. “I didn’t have to steal fire, either.”

“He kept repeating himself,” Sebastian says. “Spitting about birthright and inheritance, about purity and revenge, law, precedence, I don’t know. I don’t know why he had to take my daughter.”

“I don’t know either,” Porthos says. 

“What do I do now?” Sebastian asks, opening his eyes, wet with tears and deep with sorrow. 

“Now you go somewhere safe until this is over,” Porthos says. “That’s enough for right at this moment.”

“There is counselling available, help for you,” d’Artagnan says. “We’ll hook you up with support before we vanish, once the case is wrapped up. You won’t be left alone.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian says. “I feel helpless.”

“You’re anything but,” Porthos says, smiling. “You hid, you stalled him, you recognised him as dangerous, and here you are, giving us all the information we’ve struggled to get anywhere near to.”

Sebastian manages a weak smile. Porthos calls Jane Tan as well as two experienced officers. She’s calm and steady and exudes competence, she’s been on the beat for thirty years and knows her job back to front and inside out. Sebastian, as Porthos hoped, likes her at once, and she is delighted when she discovers he can speak broken Mandarin. They take him to the safe house and Porthos heads home to sleep off his headache. 

 

*  
“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I have a lot of information for you but you haven’t got any parametres. I can tell you how to take down a King, how to take down Cronus, how Cronus was defeated originally how he was defeated mythologically I can tell you all about the Fisher King both fictional and historical I can give you a rundown of literary allusions to them both. But Grimaud? He’s invisible. What is he? If he’s a King how come he can do all this stuff? I can tell you about illusions, about how the Sidhe play with time, but I don’t know how to take down Grimaud,” d’Artagnan says. 

“The Sidhe,” Athos says, sitting up. “Father Duval.”

“What?” Porthos asks, head resting on his arm on his desk. He’s thrown everyone except Athos and d’Artagnan out, he’s had a migraine since leaving Sebastian’s house yesterday, sleep barely put a dent into it. “Who?”

“Father Duval. Do you remember, the changelings?” Athos says. “We never picked him up, Aramis talked to one of the Sidhe princes and sorted something. Tinny, remember?”

“Spell it out as if I’m blind and stupid,” Porthos says. “I am blind and stupid, my head hurts.”

“I’ve got you,” d’Artagnan says, coming over and pressing a hand to Porthos’s head, closing his eyes. “You can find Aramis. When he fixed my ankle and crazied up time for me he left all kinds of stuff. Like how you found the Sidhe, remember? When you needed to make a story.”

Porthos focuses on his connection with d’Artagnan and pushes gently and open, pressing until d’Artagnan gives, resting against d’Artagnan’s mind, looking for what he wants more than anything. It’s easy finding Aramis that way. He burns bright and brilliant in d’Artagnan, the warm blue of his healing, Porthos tugs and wraps it around himself, sighing, settling into it. He rests like that for a while, until he can sit up without his head feeling like it’s going to implode and make a mess of his new office. He smiles up at d’Artagnan. 

“Thank you,” Porthos says. 

“Any time,” d’Artagnan says. 

“No, thanks,” Porthos says. “Grimaud’s foster mother is a healer, like Aramis. Kingfishers have always had the potential power to learn that, they’ve never bothers. You know, I never asked if they knew they could. Anyway, Grimaud learnt healing from Theresa, and healers mess with time.”

“Aramis turned it backwards to fix me,” d’Artagnan says. “Ok! Porthos, that’s a parametre!”

“I have another for you,” Athos says. “Tinny, changelings, princes and kings and lost things.”

“It’s not created time it’s lost time,” Porthos says. “That’s what father Duval does, he finds time and passes it over to the Sidhe, changelings are potential, if Grimaud learnt how to find time he could use it and I am an easy target, any kind of memory bomb and I’m a hundred generations back and wading through memories.”

There’s a tap on the door and then Elodie strides in, Clermont at her shoulder. Porthos reaches to hold onto d’Artagnan’s arm, the bump of the door on the wall and the cruch of the handle turning setting his headache off again. Not as bad but present as an unpleasant ache. Elodie opens her mouth but then she’s gone and they’re all gone and getting hold of d’Artagnan was a stupid idea, everything is very very real and Porthos is solid. He watches as Elodie screams and screams, Athos’s arm around his waist. 

“Aramis is gone,” Athos says, but he's not Athos and his regret is half glee. 

“I know,” Porthos says, watching Elodie kneel holding onto herself rocking. Marguerite comes and Elodie clings to her. 

“I was hungry,” Athos says. “Sorry.”

“Marie,” Porthos says, bolting from the room. He gets halfway out before turning to go back but Elodie’s right there on his heels. “Where?”

“School,” Elodie says. 

“Get us a solution d’Artagnan! Clermont, Athos, with us! Brujon, help d’Artagnan!” Porthos calls. 

Samara, coming out of the office, comes too, and they sweep up Constance on their way out. Athos drives, Porthos sits and persuades him to pretend Sylvie’s there watching and he drives like a maniac. Porthos puts the lights and sirens on and reaches for d’Artagnan. He’s busy, but he reaches out too and they meet. Porthos reaches to get hold of Elodie before they get too far away and the connection with d’Artagnan breaks. He connects d’Artagnan and Elodie, then Charlie and Elodie when that doesn’t get him where he wants, working deeper, reaching into the earth, for Charon and Flea and Treville, for his mother, for anyone and everyone. He finds Aramis, a shock to his system that shoots adrenaline up his spine and there. There she is. He wraps her up and pushes her into the ground and then they’re too far away and something snaps. Porthos screams, reaching finally for Athos, filling himself with Athos’s butterflies to keep the pain away. 

He doesn’t need to see, when they get there, he just runs, following his way, Athos there to stop him running into a brick wall. He reaches the gym hall and bursts in on a game of dodgeball which he ignores, flinging himself to the floor. He tears up the floorboards and find the small crawlspace, finds Marie where he put her. He lifts her out. 

“That’s where she was. Thank you for finding her for me,” Grimaud says. 

Porthos doesn’t turn. Grimaud is standing at the gym teacher’s shoulder. 

“Get them out,” Athos says. “All the children out, ma’am.”

“Sir,” Porthos corrects. 

“Either,” The teacher says. “Thank you for your help, Mr Grimaud. Come on, kids, let’s go enjoy the sunshine.”

The children cheer and burst out in great chaos, leaving the hall suddenly quiet and empty. They don’t know what to do with Grimaud yet, Porthos doesn’t understand his magic and while he can instinctively feel it, find it, he can’t do anything. Grimaud is real, though, and real means he can be hurt. When Porthos get close, Grimaud grinning and too confident, Porthos darts in and brings his truncheon down hard on Grimaud’s elbow, jabs his elbow up into Grimaud’s face, and while Grimaud is reeling Elodie calmly, intently, tazes him, Constance whispering cracking words through the electricity. 

“Never mind,” Grimaud says, smirking but breathless. 

And he’s gone. Porthos is too tired and sick for whatever Grimaud left to have any effect but he feels it gusting over him, he hears Elodie yelling, Athos falling to his knees. He sits on a pile of mats and waits for them, holing Marie’s head against his shoulder. She’s asleep and hasn’t noticed anything. 

“Home,” Porthos says, when Athos comes over. 

“I can take you home,” Athos agrees. 

Porthos doesn’t bother to make any correction. He puts Marie in Elodie’s arms and lets Athos take him home so he can stretch out on the bed. Lemay comes at Constance’s request, Constance coming too, and d’Artagnan. Lemay prescribes rest with a shrug and Porthos sleeps. 

*  
“We’ll need you to take him down,” d’Artagnan says. “And you are the one he finds it easiest to affect .The rest of us can distract while you get close, but I’m pretty sure it’s got to be you. I think he’s targetting you because he knows you’re bright and he knows you have the power to stop him. You caged Theseus, you won against the Sidhe, nymphs like you. You took the heart of a fury in.”

“I didn’t,” Porthos says. 

“There are rumours,” d’Artagnan says, brushing away Porthos’s interruption. “You can trap him in one of his illusions. I think that’s the best bet. He’s using time, if you take it away and hold him there, we can deal with him.”

“Let’s do it,” Porthos says.

They’re gathered in the murder room, Porthos is stood in front of the board examining Thérèse’s face. She looks very young in the photos Sebastian gave them, so white and blond and small. d’Artagnan’s sat on a desk near him, watching him, Athos is at the back drinking coffee. Adele and Elodie are downstairs gathering equipment and with Clermont and Brujon, to Athos’s specifications with a list of spells to load up to their phones. Constance is stood next to Porthos looking not at Thérèse but at the blurry picture of Grimaud Porthos added, picked up from a camera near the school. 

“We need a way to ‘deal’ with him,” Constance says. “If he’s lost his edge with the illusiony powerful thingy that’s great and we can probably take him down but I’d like a way to trap him.”

“Any ideas?” d’Artagnan asks Porthos. 

“I have one,” Constance says. “That dryad magic Sylvie and you used for Theseus.”

“That’d do it,” d’Artagnan says. “We could trap him in wood or something.”

“We’re good to go, then,” Athos says. “If you’re read, Porthos?”

“Yeah,” Porthos says, still looking at Thérèse. “She didn’t even know, neither did Kingsley. What’s the point?”

“Is there ever a point?” Constance asks, sounding genuinely curious. Porthos shakes his head. 

“It’s just convoluted,” Porthos says. “He just fixated on this, it could have been anything, anyone. He’s just twisted up and hateful. Doesn’t it ever scare you, that the people we deal with, they’re just like us? Bitter, afraid, hating.”

“Doesn’t sound much like you,” d’Artagnan says, grinning. 

“It is, though,” Porthos says. “Plenty in me that’s bitter, plenty of stuff I hate, I’m often afraid. We think of people like him as monstrous, but the only monstrous thing is how like to him we all are, without noticing. Gotta notice it, it’s worth recognising, recognising that we’re all…”

“Porthos,” Athos says, getting to his feet. Porthos turns and the world spins with him, losing Thérèse’s face, Grimaud’s. He shakes his odd mood off. 

“The difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Huh. Ok, shall we?” Porthos says, clapping his hands decisively. 

He takes Athos, Brujon, d’Artagnan, Clermont, Adele, Elodie, and Constance. They set up in Juliet’s kitchen and she and Theresa watch, with increasing anger on Theresa’s side. 

“My son is not here! He hasn’t come to see me in years!” Theresa shouts, eventually. 

“He came home,” Porthos says. “He was injured, he came home, I swear to you I’m not just here on a hunch. I know he’s here.”

He finishes setting up the perimeter and Constance speaks the spell making it live. Theresa snorts and she and Juliet sit at the table. Athos arms them all, giving out various defenses and bits of tech, making sure their phones are all loaded with the spells Brujon and d’Artagnan have identified as ‘probably helpful’. Porthos waits until they’re all ready before heading into the garden and to the bottom of the house, kneelimg, hands against the stones, dew sinking through the knees of his trousers. He calls Constance over when he finds the shapes he’s looking for. He pases her the colours and sounds and smells and she weaves a spell out of the bits and pieces and the wall opens up, revealing a small space. A sleeping bag, a battery torch, a tesco bag, no Grimaud. Porthos spins, pushing Brujon out of the way, and feels a burning in his arm.

“He has a gun!” d’Artagnan warns a little late. 

The battle’s on and Porthos stills, staying on his knee as if defeated. His arm hurts and he feels sick seeing the blood on his sleeve but he’s not going down so easily. He waits for Grimaud to be distracted and then charges, tackling him, holding on tight until Grimaud smiles at him, teeth bared. The air frizzles and the smell and sickening sound of the carriage close around Porthos. He breathes a sigh of relief and looks around. Athos is on the edge of the crowd, a cloak over his shoulders, hair wet. Porthos heads for him and pushes through the illusion. Now he knows it’s there it’s easy. Athos is Grimaud, it’s so easy to tell; his height, the scars, the way he holds himself, it’s nothing like Athos. Porthos’s mind clears and he wraps an arm around the fake-Athos’s waist as if deceived, the vulnerability of the water a nice touch which allows Grimaud to lean into him, his touch deepening his connection to Porthos. Porthos allows it, using the time Grimaud is distracted pulling him in to look for the threads of time. If he can dislocate those, the illusion will collapse, the century dying around them, and if Grimaud is deeply enough hooked into it he’ll be trapped. He is hooked in through Porthos, so Porthos will be trapped as well. He’ll have to trust the others to take Grimaud down and trap him with the Dryad magic salvaged from Theseus’s cocoon. 

“Thief!” Someone calls, and to Porthos’s surprise Aramis runs through the crowd after a man with a leather satchel. 

Grimaud looks surprised, too, so it’s not the illusion. Porthos can feel that it really is Aramis, somehow breaking in. Porthos remembers how Grimaud fed always off Aramis. He’d only assumed, yesterday, seeing Elodie crying, when Grimaud said he had been hungry, it had made sense, Marie is young and full of potential time. But that isn’t how Grimaud works. He takes lost time, which Aramis has always been awash with when he uses his ability and here he is, as if drawn. Porthos twists away from Grimaud and leaps after Aramis, closing the distance between them by manipulating the illusion, gripping Aramis by the arms. Aramis stares at him, shocked. Porthos lets go and holds his hands in a cradle. Aramis puts a foot in, still looking at Porthos in shocked confusion. Porthos gives him a boost and holds onto the tatters of time, yanking it off Aramis and closing it into his own heart, flinging Aramis out. Grimaud yells in fury and Porthos turns in time to be hit head on. He wraps his arms and legs around Grimaud and feels Grimaud’s teeth sinking into his shoulder, tearing away to get at the time Porthos stole from Aramis. 

The century fades and the smell finally, finally lifts. Porthos breathes in the sharp metallic of blood instead. He clears his mind and finds the shape of the illusion in Grimaud, finds the shape of Grimaud, and closes everything down. He shuts himself down too and just hangs onto Grimaud. 

He lies there for a long time, the bullet graze on his arm stinging and throbbing, Grimaud’s teeth in his shoulder beating with pain, terror blazing through him as Grimaud tears into him like an animal. Porthos can only hope that the others manage out there, beyond the illusion. He won’t know unless they drag Grimaud out, they didn’t plan that. They’d thought Porthos could leave, he’d not corrected them. He should be able to hold Grimaud here with with something, but there’s nothing left, nothing but darkness and pain. He lies on his back and hangs on, and hangs on, and hangs on. At last there’s a spark of light and Porthos, hoping against hope that it’s the others and not Grimaud rebuilding some other world, grips onto it and pushes it open, tossing Grimaud through. He crawls out too and finds himself sitting against the wall of the house, blood wet on his shirt, his arm and his chest and his shoulder all bleeding. Elodie’s knelt pressing a cloth to him, slowing the bleeding. Porthos looks up and sees Grimaud encased in wood, half his face showing, the dryad’s growth half part of his skin. He’s all twisted up and jumbled with the trees. Porthos watches him struggle and shriek with rage. He can’t escape, Constance is still pacing circles around him, binding him with more and more spells. 

“I and only I am heir to Cronus, half blood humans are not to be allowed the honour and those of us who mate with you weak creatures are forever stained and marked for death. I am fulfilling the creed of the Kings, I have committed no crime by the laws of the Kingfishers!” Grimaud shouts. “I am a Kingfisher, you think you can hold me like this?”

Grimaud laughs, the familiar laugh, and raises his only free arm, charging the air, magic flaring and sputtering. Porthos watches, helpless, readying for whatever’s coming the only way he can; bracing himself. Grimaud’s eyes go wide and he falls forward with a sucking noise and Athos is stood behind him, Aramis’s knife in his hand, covered in blood. He looks dispassionately down at Grimaud. 

“King or not, you should not have set out to hurt Porthos,” Athos hisses, dropping the knife on top of Grimaud and turning to Porthos, coming over. He glances at Theresa when she screams. “He’s not dead. The Kings can have him now.”

“He did break their laws,” Porthos whispers. “I’m so sorry, Theresa. He took what he shouldn’t have, he took fire from Cronus, he took time from the Sidhe, he took every power he could a twisted it all up. Here they come.”

It’s Louis, Theseus, and King John who come, flickering in the dappled light, Theseus the hunter coming for his prey, Louis coming to claim under the kingfisher law, King John as adjudicator. The United Kingdom agreed a long time ago that kingfishers get tried by their own law, they live and die by it. Grimaud might be only half kingfisher but it’s enough. The three kings seem mighty, somehow, in the sunshine, even Louis who is weak by his people’s standards. They take Grimaud by the arms, Theseus undoing the Dryad magic he lived within and learnt, they leave with him, vanishing into the dappled shade under the trees, walking their own roads. Porthos looks at Elodie and then at Adele, kneeling at his side both looking shaken and white, then at Athos, coming to kneel too. Constance goes to Theresa and Juliet, d’Artagnan gets a start on documenting the scene, Brujon and Clermont deal with the perimeter and calling it in. Porthos reaches out and takes Athos’s hand. 

“Aramis was there,” he says. 

“I think Grimaud is dead now,” Athos says, looking at Porthos’s chest. “You’re fine except for the bullet graze.”

“The Kings do not do mercy,” Porthos says. 

“He was mad,” Elodie says. “Did you hear him?”

“He wasn’t mad,” Porthos says. “He was as sane as you or me.”

“We found out that Christina Alexander, Count Dohna, defeated Cronus,” Adele says, “In the mythology Zeus kills Cronus but the guy was alive when Kingsley was born. He appears on the police records as Christina Alexander, Count Dohna’s, family, protesting the match with Aurelie. Within two months of his protestation he was dead.”

“Ok,” Porthos says. “Put it all in your report. We’ll tie things up on the system tomorrow, file your reports and go home. Brujon, Clermont, finish up here and supervise the scene.”

*

Porthos tries to forget seeing Aramis, he throws himself into learning his new job, gets used to not working with Athos and d’Artagnan, gets used to Brujon’s puns which emerge as the man gets confident. To his surprise Constance starts working with the Musketeers and seems to love it. He spends less and less time with them, more and more in his office dealing with paperwork. It’s a steady day job, Monday to Friday, regular hours. He finds himself with free time which is very weird. He starts doing some work on the garden, redecorates an office in the house, does a lot of clothes shopping. He’s bored but refuses to admit it. He’s older, this is just growing up. He goes on a dating website and see Adele there to his surprise and says hi to embarrass her and they end up chatting and then going for coffee and somewhere along the way they end up cuddling on the sofa and after that it’s mostly a thing. They snuggle together and kiss and then Porthos has rather boisterous sex with her in Athos’s bedroom and Athos gives him a stern lecture while Adele is still sat on the bed mostly naked laughing silently at Athos behind his back while Porthos tries to project earnest apology in his boxer shorts. 

Adele also has quite regular hours, she’s still a very junior detective and Elodie likes to finish up in time to have the evening with Marie and Marguerite so Adele is quite often at a loose end, used like Porthos to working late. She worked her butt off to make detective and now she has she’s got a laxer schedule and is at a bit of a loss. She often ends up in the garden with Porthos lying in the shade while it’s hot and complaining about hot hot it is and spraying him with the hose and interfering with his gardening and being a general nuisance. She also spends a surprising amount of time half-clothed, slathered in suncream, encouraging Porthos to do the same and lying around watching him garden making lewd comments about him muscles. This gets Porthos additional stern lectures from Athos about propriety and Prothos really tries to take him seriously but it’s really hard because this is the most fun he’s had for ages and there’s nothing life threatening about it and why, really, SHOULDN’T he ‘parade about in his garden in nothing but knickers’? 

“They’re not knickers,” Adele says, leaning into Porthos’s side, ducking under his arm and squirting Athos and Porthos with the hose. “They’re very manly shorts. Swimming trunks. And my knickers are a bikini, I checked the label. Shall I get wet too, Porthos? If so you have to cover me in cream first.”

Porthos does, massaging it into her shoulders and back so he can get her back with the hose. They end up having a water fight and having dinner on the kitchen floor, Athos refusing to let them into the rest of the house until they dry and dress. Sylvie finds it all very funny and begins coming over early for dates with Athos and joining them in the garden under the sprinkler in her swimming costume, throwing water over them both. Athos ignores it, stopping with the stern lectures. 

And then there’s what Porthos thinks of in his own head as ‘the Aramis thing’. One evening Adele has gone home, Sylvie’s not come over, no one’s there except Athos and Porthos. They’re in bed, Athos reading Porthos lying on his stomach completely naked drowsing. 

“Are you really annoyed by Dela?” Porthos asks. 

“No,” Athos says, amused. “Of course not. I was uncomfortable at first, by the lack of clothing.”

He gives Porthos’s naked back a fond rub and puts his book aside, straddling Porthos’s hips so he can massage his shoulders. Porthos groans and goes limp. He and Athos have never had a very sexual relationship and it’s familiar and relaxing to give in to this knowing it won’t go anywhere. 

“I love you,” Porthos says. “Thank you for supporting me.”

“Of course,” Athos says. 

“Is it ok, me and Adele?” Porthos asks. They have talked about it a bit, of course. “I think I want to date her. Not actually date her she doesn’t really do that but it will be more than just friends who sometimes have sex in your bed. Sorry about that, by the way. It was thrilling though.”

Athos laughs and tells him he’s dreadful and kisses his neck.

“It’s fine, you and Adele. You seem happier, lighter, I like it,” Athos says. “You want me to be happy, I want you to be happy. More than anything.”

“Happier than anything, that’s a big ask,” Porthos says, making Athos bite him gently in admonishment. “Ow!”

“I was being nice,” Athos says, soothing the bite with his hands. “Romantic, even.”

Porthos is about to answer, but he feels something like a spark of electricity up his spine and instead he yells in pain, bucking Athos off and flinging himself off the bed, kneeling on his hands and knees, panting. Athos follows and crouches, hand in the small of his back, worried and soothing. 

“We should bring Aramis home,” Porthos grumbles, getting to his feet and rubbing his back. “I dunno what he’s doing in that bloody church but recently he’s been getting hurt.”

“You can feel it?” Athos asks, getting up too. 

“No, not really. Kind of. Since I found him in France in the wrong century I’ve been able to find him easily and he me. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it but when he gets hurt he reaches for me and jabs at me.”

“How long has this been happening?” Athos asks. 

“I dunno,” Porthos shrugs. “A couple weeks? He’s been reaching since then and I’ve felt him about the place, it’s nice. But only two weeks, I think, the jabbing.” 

“Badly hurt?” Athos asks. 

“No. Last time it was just a twinge, a twisted ankle, something hit him or maybe he tripped over,” Porthos says, shrugging. “I’m so freaking bored! And he should come home anyway! This is a stupid interlude to our adventuring.”

“Anne’s going to kill you,” Athos says mildly. 

“Samara wants my job, she’ll be better at it,” Porthos dismisses. “Let’s go get Aramis.”

It takes him, Athos and d’Artagnan two weeks to find Aramis, by which point Aramis has been away from home for more than three months. They don’t find him at the church Athos found him serving in, they’re told he left two months ago, maybe longer. They don’t find him at his home address or the forwarding address. They’re losing hope when the local law enforcement, recognising them when they go in to do a search on Aramis, ask for their help. They head out to a cathedral with a very young PC, the only sensitive at the station, who tells them in high-pitched excitement about the haunted Cathedral that’s slowly coming alive. 

“Alright, slow down. What’s your name, kid?” Porthos asks, sat up front and tiring of being jabbered at. 

“Camille. PC Clark I mean.”

“Nice to meet you Camille, I’m Porthos, those guys in the back are Athos de la Fere and John d’Artagnan,” Porthos says. “Right. Haunted house coming alive?”

“Yeah, it’s so cool!” Camille says. “Except it ate my friend. Not nice. Do you think she’ll be ok?”

“What’s her name?” Porthos asks, not answering the question; the answer depends, if the house is actually alive probably not but if it’s a poltergeist (more likely) maybe. 

“Martine,” Camille says. “She’s not a cop. I only just met her really, we went on a date, from the internet. We talked for ages though I really liked her.”

The Cathedral is oddly dull, the charge barely there. Porthos looks at Athos who shrugs and d’Artagnan who points to a plaque saying the Cathedral was made with iron, a non-conductive. They step inside and stand in the nave and all three of them look up at once, d’Artagnan catching Camille before she goes further. Aramis comes swinging down from the great rafters, a girl held against him, completely black in leather and skin tight lycra, a mask over his eyes. He lands lightly in front of them and crouches, lowering the girl to lie on the floor, pulsing blue through her before straightening. 

“Hello,” he says, passing them bits of fabric. “You’ll be wanting these, this guy likes the pepper spray this woman had on her.”

“Martine,” Camille breathes, kneeling. “Is she dead?”

“Nope,” Aramis says. “Found her walking over those beams like a tightrope Porthos!”

Porthos jumps aside just in time, the piece of stained glass missing him by inches. He wraps the fabric over his face, positioning the eyeholes, and grins at Aramis. 

“Shall we?” Aramis says, grinning back and offering his arm. 

They walk down the nave together and stand back to back. It’s easy to expel what is, afterall, a poltergeist. They’ve done it together a hundred times. Porthos can do it even while being entirely distracted by Aramis in leather and lycra. He always knew Aramis was beautiful, truly, but there is something about watching him (and Porthos does get distracted and mostly watch) leaping around a church in skintight clothing, hair tied back, face bright and eager and having loads of fun, that… Porthos sits in the pews and watches as Aramis lands in front of the altar and shouts ‘the power of god compels you!’ before casting and banishing the poltergeist, sitting down to laugh at himself. He removes the mask from his face and grins around at them and it’s the most wonderful thing Porthos has ever seen. He gets shakily to his feet and moves over to Aramis, who holds out his arms, beaming, also getting up. Porthos stops and Athos pushes forward, accepting the hug, making some joke about trouble, kissing Aramis’s cheek and hugging him again. d’Artagnan’s next, embracing him and laughing and babbling about new. Aramis turns to Porthos. 

“It’s good to see you!” Aramis cries, holding out his arms for Porthos again. Porthos sticks his chin up and decides that he is angry. He turns away. “Oh.”

“Guys?” Camille calls. “I think Martine needs to go to a hospital.”

Porthos goes over and lifts the woman into his arms, carrying her out to the car. Aramis comes with them and they leave Camille with Martine, he comes with them to the police station to make a report and is recognised as ‘The Ghostbuster’ and has his hand shaken over and over. He seems to have made himself into some kind of ridiculous superhero. Porthos files his paperwork and returns to the air bnb they’re staying at. Athos and d’Artagnan, to Porthos’s irritation, brings Aramis back too. Porthos ignores them and makes dinner for three. Athos and Aramis sit outside and Porthos has the windows open and can hear them. He cuts angrily as they catch up. 

“I was at the church, yeah,” Aramis says. “But about a month in, just under, Porthos did something. I don’t know what but one second I’m kneeling, praying, looking for peace, and the next Porthos is reaching for me and connecting, finding me. It was… a shock.”

Porthos freezes, his hand in soapy dishwater. That was when he was in the car, looking for Marie to protect her. He’d found Aramis across the entire country. 

“Then a week later there was a ghost in an old house and I went to help because I was bored, and then again and again, and I ended up far from the church and enjoyed it. I found more peace in doing this than I ever did praying,” Aramis continues. “Then I was chasing a ghoul to kept stealing things from a church hall and suddenly I was in Paris and Porthos was there. He threw me out and I nearly missed catching the ghoul but I decided if I was going to it I’d do it properly, I got these clothes, they’re good in the dark, they’re dark navy and make me into a shadow, and good for fighting, and I started ghostbusting.”

“Porthos said you were there. I thought it was just, he never mentioned it again. He was fighting Grimaud, the guy who killed Thérèse,” Athos says. 

“How… how is Porthos?” Aramis asks. 

“Happy,” Athos says. 

“Oh. Ok,” Aramis says. “He’s angry with me.”

“Give him time,” Athos says. “I told you, you should have talked to him.”

“I know, I was a coward.”

“At first, when you first left, he cut himself off from everything. For those first nights I woke up because he was scared and alone and hurting, he would cry in his sleep but never woke and didn’t even know it. He wouldn’t let me in,” Athos says. “Give him time. He didn’t ever take the time to heal from that. He’s happy now.”

“Time,” Aramis says. “I missed him so much, but recently it’s like he’s been here.”

“You’ve been reaching for him. What happened to your back, last week?”

“Huh? Oh, that. Some arse of a ghost flung a chain across it,” Aramis says. “How did you know?”

“Porthos felt it.”

“Oh,” Aramis says. “Oops.”

Porthos leaves the kitchen. He runs, panicking, and shuts himself in the bedroom he’s sharing with Athos, pressing his face into the pillow and muffling himself so he’s not projecting everywhere, sobs wracking him. He hadn’t known about the nights Athos mentioned but as soon as Athos said it Porthos had known afterall and remembered, like a physical pain tearing through him ripping open the bundle he’d stuffed away. He’s gasping for breath and shaking with the effort of containing himself when Athos breaks in, Porthos had forgotten Athos is actually a competent empath these days. Athos wraps himself around Porthos, holding him tight, pulling him away from the cushions. 

“Shh, I’ve got you,” he whispers into Porthos’s hair. “I put a spell on the room, no one will hear. Let it out.”

Porthos does, choking and gasping and sobbing and yelling and making a right fuss. He hangs onto Athos through the storm of emotion, hoping Athos will take it all away but Athos just holds on back and soaks up the emotion, the anger, the bitter grief. Porthos screams and yells and rails, eventually he tires himself out and cries like a child. Athos cradles him until it’s over, his own tears damp against Porthos. 

“How are you doing?” Athos whispers, pressing kisses. Porthos nods. “No one’s leaving you. I will stay with you for eternity if I can. I am never ever going to leave you alone.”

“Aramis promised,” Porthos says, aware that he sounds like he’s all of five. “He promised.”

“I know,” Athos says. “He’s not your mother, he’s not dying. He’s not your father, he’s not leaving you on your own. He just needed time for himself, he was always coming home. I know it feels like he betrayed you and left you.”

“I can feel whatever I like,” Porthos says. “It’s allowed. I can be angry.”

“Yes, you can,” Athos says. “Rest for now.”

Porthos does, exhausted, grief twining around him and turning his dreams soft and cloying, vague distress seeping into everything. He wakes early, Athos snoring in his ear, tears on his cheeks. He gets up and washes his face and gets dressed, heading downstairs. He finds Aramis sat out the back on a swing-seat with a cup of tea, one leg bent under him the other pushing himself gently. He smiles sadly up at Porthos when he comes out but makes no move to ask him to sit. Porthos goes to get coffee and then joins him. 

“Would an apology help?” Aramis asks.

“No,” Porthos says. “You broke your promise.”

“Yes,” Aramis says. “I missed you. I couldn’t stay.”

“I know,” Porthos admits, sighing. “I think we’ll be fine, when you come home.”

Aramis grimaces and gives his tea a stir. Porthos gives him a sharp look and then jumps to his feet, dropping his mug and knocking the swing, knocking Aramis’s mug out too. Aramis looks up, startled, and gapes at Porthos’s anger. 

“How dare you!?” Porthos hisses, a finger in Aramis’s face. “I can’t believe you. You heartless, selfish, fucker!”

Porthos reigns in his anger and lets Aramis go, turning and going back upstairs. He lies down with Athos, who greets him in a gentle fluttering of wings. Athos is already dozing off again and restlessness rushes through Porthos. He gets up and goes back downstairs. Aramis is sat in the kitchen with tea, d’Artagnan leaning on the counter. Porthos makes himself fresh coffee. 

“You’re angry,” Aramis says. 

“Nah,” Porthos says, shrugging. “Stay, I don’t mind. We learnt to live without you, I don’t need you. I don’t really want you to come back, actually, I was thinking of turning your bedroom into a spare for when Adele stays. Got plans for it. I was worried you might disrupt our life, but if you’re staying that’s good.”

Porthos watches that hit home. Aramis slumps, and then straightens his shoulder, smiling and nodding. Porthos nods back and d’Artagnan growls in frustration and stomps out. Porthos sits in the livingroom and drinks his coffee in peaceful quiet, listening to the soft sounds of Aramis pretending to be busy in the kitchen. Porthos lies on the sofa when he done with his drink and Aramis comes in and kneels, hand against Porthos’s cheek. 

“I’m sorry,” Aramis says. “I do want to come home, I promise.”

“I know how little promises mean to you,” Porthos says, trying to turn his back but ending up staring at the ceiling. He takes Aramis’s hand. “You want to come home?”

“Yes. I wasn’t sure you were ready for me to, you are very angry,” Aramis says. 

“I am,” Porthos agrees. “You left me. With a god damned letter. A letter.”

“I was scared. You might have asked me to stay,” Aramis says. Porthos shrugs. “You shared memories with the nymphs.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you do that with me?”

“I think so.”

“I can show you why I left.”

Porthos nods and sits up, drawing Aramis between his thighs, holding his head in both Porthos’s hands. He presses his thumbs to Aramis’s temples and shuts his eyes. He finds the shapes of the nymph’s magic, Grimaud’s magic, Aramis and himself, and plays around until he finds himself at home, sitting at the table. He’s bitter with anger and grief and for a minute he thinks it’s his own but it’s not, it’s Aramis. He hears himself come down the stairs, chatting with Constance, both of them laughing about d’Artagnan and Athos looking for a present for a PC who had a baby, cooing over the tiny clothes. Porthos feels rage and disgust and then it settles into an ache that he can’t share with anyone, pain suffusing him, the warmth of a child in his arms that are empty. He turns his head and it’s gone. He feels like he’s losing it. Porthos sees his own head popped around the kitchen door calling a cheerful goodbye and feels another wash of disgust and a deep need to lash out, to make everyone hurt like this. Instead he takes a deep breath and waits for it to go away. He opens his eyes. 

“It wasn’t like that all the time,” Aramis says, eyes wet. Porthos strokes his cheek. “I know you don’t want children, I know it’s not something that’s happening for me. I didn’t want to feel that. The hurt and ache I could deal with, can deal with. But you. I love you, more than I can imagine sometimes. I care about you and love you and want to love you, enjoy loving you. I don’t want to feel all of that. I made peace, Porthos. I found peace. I wanted to be able to love you.”

“Come home,” Porthos says. “We can sort it. It’ll work.”

“You’re still hurt.”

“It’s a feeling, I can’t control it. Yeah, it hurts. I understand better, it’ll be fine.”

Aramis nods. They sit together on the swing seat, quietly, adjusting to each other again. It’s strange, Aramis is right; it’s hardly different to recent. Porthos starts now and then when he notices Aramis physically there, but his presence is familiar from recently. He feels peace move through him and away, leaving him relaxed. He rests an arm behind Aramis and tells him quietly about the case, about Grimaud, about the new job. Aramis laughs about the job so Porthos reminds him he tried to become a priest and they agree to laugh equally at both their decisions. Athos gets up later and joins them, sitting close to Porthos.

To Porthos’s slight chagrin Aramis wears his ghost busting clothes home. They reach the town house, Porthos having slept in self preservation, and find Adele there. Porthos sits beside her on the patio and watches Aramis. She watches Aramis too. They both watch Aramis. He’s doing some kind of spell-work exercise on the lawn with Constance and it involves bending and stretching in leather. Adele rests her head on Porthos’s shoulder with a deep sigh. 

“I know,” Porthos whispers. 

“How did we miss it?” Adele whispers back. 

“Shall we?” 

“Definitely.”

“Aramis!”

“Yeah?” Aramis says, wandering over, smiling. 

“I’ll show you what I did to your room,” Porthos says. 

“You changed it?” Aramis says. 

“Turned it into a spare for when Della came,” Porthos lies, leading the way inside and up the stairs. Aramis bounds after him, chattering and complaining about it, then stops when they reach his room. 

“You didn’t change anything,” Aramis says, spinning, frustration pinking his cheeks. 

“I knew that would be hot,” Porthos tells Adele, pulling her close. “I think he did something.”

“He’s definitely much more muscular,” Adele agrees. 

“What?” Aramis says, turning on her then back on Porthos. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Porthos smiles. Adele smiles. Aramis gapes at them, mouth falling open, arms loose at his sides. Adele laughs and pats his cheek. 

“Well, there goes your hotness,” Porthos says, shutting the door at his back. “Still gawky and awkward.”

“You… me… me?” Aramis says, pointing at himself, then at Adele, then Porthos. “Me?”

“God yes,” Adele says. “Those leather trousers, Jesus wept.”

“He did,” Porthos agrees. “Many tears.”

Aramis smiles shyly, cheeks pinking again. Porthos laughs and hugs him, unable to keep himself from not any longer. Aramis leans into him and tips his head back, their lips meeting. Adele shoves between them soon enough and Porthos is soon wondering what on earth possessed him not to at least get Aramis a double bed while he was away. 

*  
“Is Adele really moving in?” Aramis asks, a few days later, curled up on the bed with Athos and Porthos, Athos reading a magazine, Porthos painting Aramis’s toenails. 

“No,” Porthos says. “She likes cuddles and sex and waterfights.”

“Ok,” Aramis says. “Is this weird, now? We had sex now I’m in bed with you and Athos.”

“This is pretty much communal,” Athos says, dryly. “Sylvie and d’Artagnan and Constance, it’s like a spinny door.”

“Revolving,” Porthos says.

“No,” Athos says, preemptively. 

“A revolving bed would cool,” Porthos says. “Please?”

Athos, having already given his answer, doesn’t reply. Porthos grumbles. 

“Not weird then,” Aramis says. “Ok.”

“You’re always welcome,” Athos says. “Whatever, makes no difference to me. Platonic whatevers.”

“Isn’t he erudite?” Porthos says. “We still want you to be part of our family. And, I might have a semi-solution for you.”

“Don’t,” Aramis says closing his eyes. “I don’t want false hope.”

“It isn’t,” Porthos says. “I’ve been talking to Theresa. She’s really nice. She fostered Grimaud to begin with because she was living with a woman and at the time the laws around adoption or fostering were anti-queer-ated. That’s what she called it. Anyway, the rules around adoption cross-culturally, between mundane and supernatural, they’re much looser especially peoples or only partially human children who need to live in the human world and need a human family. We’re eligible.”

Aramis goes all still and quiet for an hour before he throws himself into Porthos’s arms and weeps and laughs and kisses him, then Athos.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OK, this is it, the end of the tangerines 'verse :) thanks for comments and playing with me in the universe, it owes A LOT to aaronavitch's Rivers of London and I am starting a cult, a religion of Rivers of London, so if you liked, read them books and join my cult :D

The house smells of tangerines when Porthos gets back from work, the day after his revelation to Aramis. He spent such a long time researching the possibilities and it had come to him as an afterthought in the end; he’d talked to Theresa after Grimaud was arrested, trying to make the connections between Paris, firm up the case against him, find out as much as possible. Theresa had been weary, willing to tell the story of Grimaud’s life, and Porthos had diligently recorded everything, the good as well as the bad. He’d ended up with a sort of compendium about raising an adopted child and it had all of a sudden clicked. Theresa had been willing to talk to him about the hows and whys, as well. He’d wondered about that; she seemed so fiercely a defender of Grimaud and here she was helping him, the man who wanted to take him down for good. It slowly dawned that this was her way of protecting him; Porthos was gathering enough information for a prosecution, but also for a defence if they wanted to argue mental health difficulties and care over prison. Porthos was ok with that option. So long as Grimaud was kept imprisoned, he wasn’t worried about where. So they’d come to an uneasy kind of truce and she’d provided him with the contacts he needed. That wasn’t the end of it. Porthos had talked to Athos and they’d done research, about raising adopted kids and what they’d need to sacrifice and adapt and change, and what they’d do if it went wrong, the legalities of it and the practicalities. They only told Aramis when they were certain. And today the house smells like oranges and Porthos finds Aramis in the kitchen, an apron tied around his waist, hair up in one of Porthos’s bandanas. 

“Hi,” Porthos says, leaning in the doorway. Aramis turns casually, as if he knew Porthos was there watching all along.

“Hey, you,” Aramis says, smiling widely, then he hesitates. Porthos shrugs. It’s still a bit awkward sometimes. Aramis smiles wider and comes sashaying over, putting his arms around Porthos’s shoulders. Porthos thinks he’s going to get kissed but Aramis just hugs him really tight. “I’m very happy.”

“Good. Is Shirley helping you out?” Porthos asks. 

“No. I told her we were going to maybe get a baby and she’s gone to get baby things,” Aramis says. Porthos opens his mouth to ask, then frowns. “I didn’t ask.”

“Probably a good idea,” Porthos says. “Why does it smell like Christmas Oranges?”

“I’m making an orange cake. I put orange in it and orange in the icing and it’s got maralade in the middle and I peeled hundreds of tangerines to pile the slices on top.”

Aramis moves to the side so Porthos can see the sideboard where he was working. There’s a masterpiece of a cake there, entirely covered in orange slices, three stories tall. 

“It’s beautiful,” Porthos says. 

“I baked it with loads of love,” Aramis says, seriously. “All those tangerines, they’ve got to keep hold of lots of it, right? Like a spell. A baking spell of love.”

Porthos blinks at Aramis until he breaks and laughs, wrapping himself around Porthos again and saying how happy he is. Porthos feels the cold settle in his chest that has been hanging around sometimes. He’s very glad that Aramis is home and happy, but happy isn’t a thing that lasts for ever and he’s afraid. He’s scared and he’s tired of being scared but he can’t help it. When it gets hard, Aramis might leave again. Porthos’s life has changed, since Aramis left. He’s kept his job as head of the SU detectives, even though it’s boring, and left Constance to work with the Musketeers. Adele does, too, sometimes, and Aramis is working on going back. Porthos keeps promising to as well, but he isn’t sure. It feels too pat, to go back to this big family thing and ‘live happily ever after’. Everything’s changed. Porthos gently disentangles himself from Aramis and presses an affectionate kiss to his temple, letting out only the gladness. 

“I’m going to do a bit of work in the office. If Athos gets back ask him to stick his head in? He needs to sign this paperwork he passed me, he always forgets,” Porthos says. 

“Are you upset?” Aramis asks. “You don’t have to tell me about it, but I think you are. I know I can’t fix it. I’m babbling. It’s ok if you’re upset.”

Porthos shakes his head and waves it away, retreating to the office. He does have work to do, his job is a lot of paperwork and if he wants to go out on jobs he has to do some of it at home in the evening sometimes. Or stay at the office, like Athos, till fuck knows when. After an hour waiting Porthos emails him asking where he is and strongly suggesting he be here instead of wherever that might be. After that he only has to wait a further half hour before Athos puts his head around the door. He has foam in his hair and a bruise on his jaw, but he’s grinning so it must’ve been fun chaos. 

“Aramis says I forgot to sign stuff,” Athos says, coming in and shutting the door. “With that email I assume it’s rather more, but do you actually need me to sign things?”

“Probably, you really do always forget when you pass things back. But nothing specific,” Porthos says, leaning back in his chair. Athos has a towel in his hand and he gets the foam off his head before sitting in the arm chair, leg crossed over his knee. 

“What’s up?” he asks, steepling his fingers, then he grins. 

“Shut up,” Porthos grumbles. 

“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time with things,” Athos says, smiling a little more gently. “What do you need?”

“Marry me,” Porthos says, startling himself. Judging by the gaping mouth and suddenly lax body and thunk of Athos’s foot hitting the floor, he startled Athos, too. Porthos shrugs. “I never wanted to get married. I don’t care about the romantic notion of it, and I don’t particularly want to marry you that way.”

“Charming,” Athos says, lips quirking, recovering enough to close his mouth. “I’m seduced and touched.”

“I don’t care about that stuff,” Porthos says, frustrated. “We’re not promising that kind of thing to each other, we agreed ages ago not to. I just want to love you and marry you platonically, to just spend the rest of my life with you like this. Loving you.”

“You’re afraid I’ll leave,” Athos says, recovering further. 

“No,” Porthos says, smiling. “Nah, not a bit. Never been afraid of that with you. It’s not to do with - I asked you to come home because I wanted assurance, I wanted to see someone who I knew without a doubt that wasn’t gonna leave if things got hard. That’s it. I want to marry you because… I just want to. I want that. To hold your hand in a church and walk down the aisle with you and get all the legal benefits and it will make this kid thing a hundred percent easier.”

“Aramis is wonderful and will make a fantastic father but he’s hardly one who’s able to commit like that,” Athos agrees. 

“I don’t know one way or another what it’ll be like for Aramis. I want things to be stable so if he does leave, it doesn’t leave me floundering. I want to be ok with the possibility of him going,” Porthos says. 

“And marrying me will help.”

“Maybe, I dunno. I want to marry you. Now I’ve thought of it I want it. Why not? Wear your ring on my finger, sign all the papers, get it all sorted. Everything in order.”

“Ok,” Athos says. “Yeah, alright, I’ll marry you.”

“Yes?” Porthos says, surprised. He’d expected at least to have more conversations about it. 

“Yes,” Athos says. “I’ve always wanted to marry you. I’m a traditionalist.”

“Right,” Porthos says, laughing. “Ok. No telling anyone, though. I wanna ask you big and proper. You can pretend not to know. It’ll be romantic. I can take Aramis ring shopping, he’ll love keeping a secret.”

“One thing. You want to marry me platonically. You don’t want our relationship to be platonic, just our marriage?”

“Yup.”

“You’re odd sometimes. But ok, I like that. Marriage will be for the kid, for legal practicalities, that kind of thing. Sylvie will love it,” Athos says. 

“Oh shit you were going out on a date with her tonight,” Porthos says, remembering. 

“Uh-huh. I don’t think Aramis buys me breaking it to come sign something for you. I didn’t think I’d mention that until we were done,” Athos says. 

“God. I’m a twat.”

“Twats are far too beautiful to be used as an insult,” Athos says. 

Porthos boggles at him, then kicks him out to go shower and meet Sylvie. Aramis comes in with the cake and sits in the arm chair with it on his knees watching Porthos work. Porthos manages a stubborn twenty minutes before giving up and closing his work laptop. Aramis beams at him and cuts him a slice of cake, passing it over on a side plate out of his front pocket in the apron. 

“All sorted?” Aramis asks. 

“Yeah,” Porthos says. Then he looks around and leans forward. “I’ve decided to ask Athos to marry me.”

Aramis’s eyes light up and he laughs, passing over a second slice of cake, making plans to go ring shopping. Shirley comes home with a huge bag of baby clothing and toys and things. Porthos makes a note to check local stores and see if he owes them money or apologies. Shirley presents everything to Aramis one item at a time, waiting eagerly for his joy to burst over her. Porthos watches idly, doodling and eating cake, thinking about any child raised in this kind of a family. A special kind of thing, to have so much love available, Porthos thinks. Even Shirley in her way, a kind of sibling maybe. Of sorts. She’s so leggy now, like a seventeen year old, stretched out and still growing. She’s copying the television, maybe. She enjoys watching Dear White People and getting outraged and happy. Porthos is pretty certain that she has a tumblr about social justice and racism somewhere. He doesn’t ask. 

“I’m off,” Athos says, poking his head in again, giving Porthos a fond smile and Aramis a kiss on the head. “I’ll probably be back tomorrow after work. Aramis, you’re going in to talk to Anne, if she gives you a contract to sign we could use you immediately so come up. Come up anyway, we can use you anyway.”

“Health and safety,” Porthos mutters, shaking his head. 

“Bye,” Athos says, over Porthos’s resigned grumbling about Aramis helping the musketeers without any kind of contract. 

“He already knows, doesn’t he?” Aramis says, when Athos has gone. “About you asking him to marry you.”

“Maybe,” Porthos says. 

“I’m still helping pick out a ring.”

Porthos opens his mouth but is drowned out by Shirely making happy shrieking noises and whizzing about the house, losing her shape in excitement. She returns in a bridesmaid’s dress. It says ‘bridesmaid no.1’ on the back. She’s also got a small shadow with her. She looks at Porthos with a demanding cock to her head and hip. He waves a hand in agreement and she’s gone in a puff of something. Ali and Treville come in coughing and complaining that she interrupted. 

“What, exactly?” Porthos asks. “Trev, can ghosts get married? We could get double married. You and Ali and me and Athos.”

“I’m not marrying Treville, have you met him? It would be a nightmare,” Ali says. 

“Cheers,” Treville says. “I’ll give you away.”

“I’ll give Athos away,” Ali says. 

“No one’s giving either of us away. You can come and drink gin and whiskey and be happy for us, though,” Porthos says. 

“I’ll walk you up the aisle,” Aramis says. “If you like.”

Porthos decides that he does like, he very much likes. He hopes d’Artagnan will walk Athos, so Athos has someone too. Or maybe Sylvie. Sylvie had better be in there somewhere. It’ll be all their wedding, in a way. Adele can come and sit and cheer, and Constance can make sure everything runs smoothly, their whole family there. Milly and Samara can make lesbian themed catering choices, they’ll like that. Samara can do whatever she likes, really. Maybe she can help give Porthos away. 

“I am still upset sometimes,” Porthos says. “It makes me very angry, that you just left like that.”

“I know. That’s ok,” Aramis says. “I can’t keep apologizing, but I understand that it’s not… for me, this is a glad time and good things are happening, I’m really happy. I know it’s not like that for you, that’s fine.”

“Ok. Thanks.”

“Are you quite finished pretending to work?” 

“Yeah.”

Aramis takes him upstairs and they drowse together, Porthos hanging on to Aramis’s hand and Aramis talking quietly about things he did while he was away. It helps, being connected to that time, knowing. And Aramis helps, too. Understanding that Porthos isn’t ok. Letting him know it’s alright to not be ok.

“It might not be happily ever after,” Aramis whispers, when Porthos is nearly asleep, Aramis’s fingers in his hair. “I don’t believe in happiness forever. I am happy now, though, and I know that you will make me happy. I never ever wondered about that. I just don’t know how to make you happy, sometimes. I thought this… it didn’t though. I don’t think it’s the only thing that hurt you but I know it did. So not happily ever after, but I will learn to make you happy. That starts with this, with loving you and lying down with you at the end of a day, and listening, and being here. My being here makes you happy. That’s the most wonderful gift.”

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Porthos grumbles, turning and engulfing a laughing Aramis in a huge hug. 

“Christ I love you, Porthos,” Aramis says, squashed and breathless.

And that, that is happily for now, and it’s enough.


End file.
